I’m a fan of staff ele ever since I started playing this game. Post 15th April patch, even though the whole DPS has been nerfed but imo a lot can be recompensed through new sigils and runes available to us. I recorded a new video of my staff ele in pvp group arena, it may not impress some of you out there who seek a “proper” build for a long 1 v 1 etc with some technicalities like ‘stun breaker’ ‘condi cleanse’ etc, but this high dps ele is very good for killing opponents faster due to it’s high burst/ crit damage. You obviously have to dodge/ position yourself correctly and cannot face tank anything. If you manage to keep yourself at a good distance, you can pretty much kill anyone (with using your cc skills) in 1 v 1 also as shown in some clips at the end. I personally enjoy it a lot every time I play pvp with my friends and I thought I should share it with you guys also
But you played staff ele, so I forgive you. Great video. Just like you said, I think the lack of stun breakers and survival utilities will make this quite hard to play so I commend you for giving it a go.
6/6/0/0/2 with zerkers is tonnes of fun until the opposing team figured out you’re basically a walking pillow fort just waiting to be blown over… then things get less fun But I still can’t help playing it as well from time to time just for giggles… Especially if the other team neglects to bring any thieves.
Fort Aspenwood – Elementalist
Character name: Azilyi
hehe very right ! I have had some great laughs when I see enemies are melting away and they have no idea from where they are getting such huge spikes of damage! I appreciate your compliment. I usually find myself a safe spot, it does exist on every pvp map! Also, I put 2 in water for Vital Striking, so during this video, I was 6, 4, 0 2, 2 with Runes of strength (for obvious reasons) however, as I see I can interrupt a lot with my staff skills quite frequently so I would try to go with that GM air trait ! :-)
Nice Vid,
I personally dont like staff in PvP because its a little slow.
And very Situational, okay in nifhel mid you have good spots to hide and blast from distance but i think on onther maps were u can get easily targeted that has much more risk to it.
And lets say ur opponents were not the best, seeing their skills and movement.
And i have a question:
Why arcane brilliance?
I know you can use it for might stacking, but it’s a skill profiting most if you are in the middle of the fight, which I think should be avoided as long as possible with zerker staff.
Thanks Duran.
I do understand your points and the high risks involved in this build, unfortunately I cannot record every match but mostly, chances are if you don’t step into wrong situations, you can be safe! Example, if I would only start attacking if I see at least one of my mates is around to face the opponents and as I said above, every map has such locations, for ex, temple storm has some good sheds at every capture point.
Secondly, even if opponents are very good, they cannot chase me if I’m standing at a good distance and possibly can run away too but our idea usually is that my mates will interrupt them and let me do my job. Anyway, I used Arcane Brilliance cause in Air, I took ‘Arcane Lighting’ trait that increases my critical hit damage for some 15 secs, it wont stack so I try to use arcane brilliance and arcane wave separately. So my idea was both the skills have option to be either used as a blast finisher or solely for this trait. Your inputs will be appreciated if any. :-)
Well I am running 6/6/2/0/0 D/D , arcane brilliance, arcane projectile, arcane wave, lightning flash , and Elemental as elite. (i do have that trait as well).
Runes of Strength, Sigil of Air, and the Sigil that stacks might on attunement change (weapon change) and ofc berserker amulet.
It’s really fun, especially cause if done right you kill a lot of enemies before they can even react. (sometimes even necros).
With that I win >60% one on one situations and definitly >50% of the teamfight situations(though you have to know your enemy and when to engage your burst).
If you can get your enemy by surprise burning speed + both instant arcane skills at the same time(cause the arcane skills can be cast instantly and dont interrupt anything else) kills most zerker builds instant (if not they dont have much life after that), which is especially nice if 3 of them in a teamfight are at the same spot.
Against Bunker builds you have to know your timing. But it’s PvP so all that counts is fighting experience (and reflexes).
I have been experimenting with a 0/0/2/6/6 staff bunker build running Celestial amulet and Melandru runes. I’m not sure how this would hold up in high level play, but in solo queue it has been pretty successful at holding a point outnumbered until help can arrive. I just wonder if the same build with S/F or D/D might be more effective.
Great play with your Staff - though I expect you’re at least as squishy as I am if a single-target build decides to focus you!
I’d really like to see a video that was realtime with actual in-game sound, so we could see how you timed your casts/dodges/whatever - the music track is fun but kinda distracts from the whole ’look, listen, skilled combat!’ that your video clearly shows. I’m sure a bunch of us (including me) would benefit from knowing your cast times and which enemy attacks were important enough to dodge by rupting channels.
re: Arcane Brilliance - can anyone think of a situation in which a Staff Nuker isn’t **really screwed** when they have to heal mid-combat? Any competent Thief or Mesmer or Warrior will get a very easy stomp if they catch the Ele alone, and the majority of Necromancers and Engineers will also have an easy time of it. Brilliance gives teambuffs and high healing, which will often be enough to win (or at least get out of the focus of) major teamfights.
You will always have good might stacks on you so runes of strength and vital striking trait in water compliment this build so badly! Remember you’re a heavy damage dealer at 100% hp, cannot afford to take a single hit that’s what we always have to take care of! The normal direct damage is so high as I see, crits are just icing on the cake. If you try it, do let me know how it goes for you :-)
@ cheese.4739 : Thanks Cheese. You’re so right as for being squishy. Mobility/ dodging on right attacks using all your available cc is very important with this build and is my sole savior. Moreover for me, it’s just super fun playing this squishy and giving my team mates a high aoe dps to help make longer mid fights shorter :-) Next, I will try to record it with actual in-game sound as you said whenever I do some group arenas next, probably this weekend only. Also, I was thinking of taking GM air trait “Lighting Rod” in place of “Vital Striking”, what would you say about it seeing I do interrupt a lot?
@Feaduin.7603 : If I ever have to play staff ele bunker, I would go with 0, 0, 6, 4, 4 with Soldier Trinket. Decent tank and using interrupts with your decent power/ condi damage you can easily win in 1 v 1 at any point. Might be very slow though.
@Duran.3196: Just read your p.s, a match with you! Sure! :-)
I have one main question: why interrupt the Meteor Shower halfway through? The way you’re casting it, only 3ish meteors drop per cycle of meteors, resulting in a total of 12 meteors. If you fully cast it, 6 meteors drop per cycle, potentially doubling the damage. Since you’re not the first I found interrupting the channel halfway, I wonder if I’m missing something. Is the advantage of double the amount of meteors not big enough to “waste” time fully channeling it?
@ cheese.4739 : Thanks Cheese. You’re so right as for being squishy. Mobility/ dodging on right attacks using all your available cc is very important with this build and is my sole savior. Moreover for me, it’s just super fun playing this squishy and giving my team mates a high aoe dps to help make longer mid fights shorter :-) Next, I will try to record it with actual in-game sound as you said whenever I do some group arenas next, probably this weekend only. Also, I was thinking of taking GM air trait "Lighting Rod" in place of "Vital Striking", what would you say about it seeing I do interrupt a lot?
I still haven’t played with Lightning Rod, but it’s probably a pretty solid addition to a nuker build if you can land the rupts.
I’ve been running a probably riskier 30/20/10/0/10 for a while, with Lava Tomb (and Persisting Flames/Blasting Staff to enhance it). It’s great fun, and seems to do really well in team play - but I’ve not been able to play with well-organised teams nearly enough, and keep joining very inexperienced guildies for fun games so am unlikely to climb the leaderboards any time soon.
In Earth I’m running Stone Splinters, and would drop that for the 6 Air (like your Vital Striking) - then there’s the decision whether to stick with Arcane Lightning or instead grab Alacrity for slightly more frequent interrupts (particularly on those pesky Thieves who shadowstep right into Static Fields). That probably depends on how reliably the GM trait works, and how much damage it adds per interrupt. Hm.
Hi guys, i’m actually running this build
It hit pretty hard but is not as extreme as your Diva, that’s why i want to ask you:
With that kind of build what do you do when you see that the enemy team have 1+ thief? Honestly, a SP zerk thief or a backstab one will make your full match almost unplayable if he is half good (depends on the map of course, forest is the best map for zerk staff).
Another question: why do u interrupt your meteor shower at half the cast? i always knew that if you interrupt it the number of meteors will decrease, isn’t that correct?
Champion magus, 4 builds i use
R.I.P. my beloved Meh-Mer, the most hated class by ANET itself.
Winner of the first HxH 1v1 tournament! WOOT!
Personally I would interrupt meteor shower everytime in pvp to be able to focus on other powerful skills quickly cause you cannot fully kill an opponent with only meteor shower, however, it’s aoe blast surely adds hugely to the damage around. If I cast full meteor shower, it wouldn’t benefit me as much as you do with Lava Font (which you can cast pretty fast for huge damage) etc skills on your opponent. So in pvp, if you are focusing to kill single target quickly, you would tend to interrupt meteor shower and jump to other skills. It would still do 2-3 hits on the target which should be enough :-D
@cheese.4739 Okay so I tried “Lightning Rod” trait, I was NOT impressed by it as compared to my old trait “Vital Striking” so I changed it back. Reasons being, I do interrupts but not that frequent enough but not worth taking it over VS. Secondly, it’s damage is as good as my Fire ball normal crit damage so I chucked it! Also, cheeze, Persisting Flames is a very good trait but I usually don’t use combos for might with this very build cause I have ample options of might available to me already, so I use Arcane Wave for direct damage sometimes. Moreover, in team fights, you will often have fury on you through your mates (provided you don’t try to solo anywhere else it’s absolutely safe for you)
The main challenge with this build is to keep yourself very safe and mobile, we have great damage options available to us, that’s never an issue! =)
Hi guys, i’m actually running this build
It hit pretty hard but is not as extreme as your Diva, that’s why i want to ask you:
With that kind of build what do you do when you see that the enemy team have 1+ thief? Honestly, a SP zerk thief or a backstab one will make your full match almost unplayable if he is half good (depends on the map of course, forest is the best map for zerk staff).
Another question: why do u interrupt your meteor shower at half the cast? i always knew that if you interrupt it the number of meteors will decrease, isn’t that correct?
To be honest, I tested both builds out and I prefer yours.
I only switched out the cleansing fire for lightning flash and the healing skill for ether renewal.
@cheese.4739 Okay so I tried "Lightning Rod" trait, I was NOT impressed by it as compared to my old trait "Vital Striking" so I changed it back. Reasons being, I do interrupts but not that frequent enough but not worth taking it over VS. Secondly, it’s damage is as good as my Fire ball normal crit damage so I chucked it! Also, cheeze, Persisting Flames is a very good trait but I usually don’t use combos for might with this very build cause I have ample options of might available to me already, so I use Arcane Wave for direct damage sometimes. Moreover, in team fights, you will often have fury on you through your mates (provided you don’t try to solo anywhere else it’s absolutely safe for you)
Yeah I built to at least have a chance if caught alone, since I don’t tend to play with with organised (competent) teams - so I’m definitely reliant on my traits for fury.
There’s also the fun bit where I really do use Lava Tomb, and PF’s added duration means I do that much more damage when I get downed. It’s hilarious against the inexperienced, and as far as I can tell pretty effective even against more aware foes - Thieves will still gank then evade away immediately, and the Warriors’ Endure Pain is frustrating, but landing a double Lava Font on anyone else usually kills them before they realise what’s going on. Need to experiment more with allies that know what I’m running, though, because deciding when to res me and when to damage enemies makes all the difference.
I’m a fan of staff ele ever since I started playing this game. Post 15th April patch, even though the whole DPS has been nerfed but imo a lot can be recompensed through new sigils and runes available to us. I recorded a new video of my staff ele in pvp group arena, it may not impress some of you out there who seek a “proper” build for a long 1 v 1 etc with some technicalities like ‘stun breaker’ ‘condi cleanse’ etc, but this high dps ele is very good for killing opponents faster due to it’s high burst/ crit damage. You obviously have to dodge/ position yourself correctly and cannot face tank anything. If you manage to keep yourself at a good distance, you can pretty much kill anyone (with using your cc skills) in 1 v 1 also as shown in some clips at the end. I personally enjoy it a lot every time I play pvp with my friends and I thought I should share it with you guys also
Hello Diva! I’m really amazed to see your video, you played really well being a squishy staff ele in a pvp arena. Very helpful to your team and a perfect skillful staff play :-)
I will definitely try your build I know I need to practice a lot with it since I play a warrior mostly but I always wanted to play a staff ele……… just as you played in the video
I’m a fan of staff ele ever since I started playing this game. Post 15th April patch, even though the whole DPS has been nerfed but imo a lot can be recompensed through new sigils and runes available to us. I recorded a new video of my staff ele in pvp group arena, it may not impress some of you out there who seek a “proper” build for a long 1 v 1 etc with some technicalities like ‘stun breaker’ ‘condi cleanse’ etc, but this high dps ele is very good for killing opponents faster due to it’s high burst/ crit damage. You obviously have to dodge/ position yourself correctly and cannot face tank anything. If you manage to keep yourself at a good distance, you can pretty much kill anyone (with using your cc skills) in 1 v 1 also as shown in some clips at the end. I personally enjoy it a lot every time I play pvp with my friends and I thought I should share it with you guys also
Hello Diva! I’m really amazed to see your video, you played really well being a squishy staff ele in a pvp arena. Very helpful to your team and a perfect skillful staff play :-)
I will definitely try your build I know I need to practice a lot with it since I play a warrior mostly but I always wanted to play a staff ele……… just as you played in the video
You might consider changing your utilities. Signet of earth for example is an excellent choice for a glassy staff ele since it immobilizes your opponent for almost 4 (!) seconds on a 30 second CD and the passive bonus is +180 toughness. I would also use arcane blast instead of signet of fire so you can 1 shot enemies with 1 big combo. Overall, nice video, although you benefit from the unability of your opponents to realize that you are the primary target.
You might consider changing your utilities. Signet of earth for example is an excellent choice for a glassy staff ele since it immobilizes your opponent for almost 4 (!) seconds on a 30 second CD and the passive bonus is +180 toughness. I would also use arcane blast instead of signet of fire so you can 1 shot enemies with 1 big combo. Overall, nice video, although you benefit from the unability of your opponents to realize that you are the primary target.
hey, thanks for your inputs. I’m definitely gonna look into the changes you have suggested specially the arcane blast makes very good sense with the kind of build I’m using in pvp. :-)
I would replace Vital striking for Tempest defense.
Tempest Defense helps protects me from random thieves with basilisk venom coming in to gank me. With good positioning, the real danger is only these thieves that can go over the obstacles with ease through shadowstepping.
What I always tend to do is place Lava font right on top of downed players. Lava font hits like a truck. It is basically a ranged Hundred blades. Ressers will try to res their allies. But instead, they die trying because of the massive damage. Lava font outdps the player’s heals so it is incredibly hard for players to get their team up. Even if there is no one around to res the downed player, lava font will melt the downed player very quickly. Additionally, most Downed players can’t move. Lava font has very low cooldown. The point is: There is low risk and high reward just by putting lava font directly on the downed player, even randomly.
Wow, such a glass cannon build though — glad you can handle it, I wouldn’t be good enough to pull it off and not crumple instantly. No way would I ever throw the Vital Striking trait into a PvP build, but I guess if you’re going to focus solely on burst damage you have to go big or go home. Seems you know how to handle yourself in the vid, so I guess the risk pays off!
Wow, such a glass cannon build though — glad you can handle it, I wouldn’t be good enough to pull it off and not crumple instantly. No way would I ever throw the Vital Striking trait into a PvP build, but I guess if you’re going to focus solely on burst damage you have to go big or go home. Seems you know how to handle yourself in the vid, so I guess the risk pays off!
Thanks!! yeah you gotta be in love with Staff ele to play it well I solely focus on doing max damage I could do, however, this kinda setup is playable with an organized team only.
and @runeblade.7514, thanks for your suggestions. I have now removed Vital striking trait for tempest defense.
TO ALL OF YOU GUYS WHO REPLIED TO THIS THREAD, THANKS FOR YOUR COMMENTS, I HAVE MADE SOME CHANGES CONSIDERING ALL YOUR GOOD SUGGESTIONS, I HEAL MORE EFFECTIVELY NOW USING BLASTS AND I DON’T INTERRUPT METEOR SHOWER MUCH EITHER
You might consider changing your utilities. Signet of earth for example is an excellent choice for a glassy staff ele since it immobilizes your opponent for almost 4 (!) seconds on a 30 second CD and the passive bonus is +180 toughness. I would also use arcane blast instead of signet of fire so you can 1 shot enemies with 1 big combo. Overall, nice video, although you benefit from the unability of your opponents to realize that you are the primary target.
Hm, I should maybe look at running Signet of Earth, because an on-demand immobilise would really help for both point control and keeping people in those delicious Lava Fonts - right now I’m three arcanes: Wave, Shield, Blast. Can’t get rid of Shield (or at least not for some other stunbreak/safecast/safestomp) and am very reluctant to get rid of Wave because it’s such an effective utility - so I guess it’ll replace Arcane Blast. It’s a shame that I’ll be losing some of my single-target spike, but I guess it has better utility and might prove to up my dps if I can get people stuck in fields enough.
You might consider changing your utilities. Signet of earth for example is an excellent choice for a glassy staff ele since it immobilizes your opponent for almost 4 (!) seconds on a 30 second CD and the passive bonus is +180 toughness. I would also use arcane blast instead of signet of fire so you can 1 shot enemies with 1 big combo. Overall, nice video, although you benefit from the unability of your opponents to realize that you are the primary target.
Hm, I should maybe look at running Signet of Earth, because an on-demand immobilise would really help for both point control and keeping people in those delicious Lava Fonts – right now I’m three arcanes: Wave, Shield, Blast. Can’t get rid of Shield (or at least not for some other stunbreak/safecast/safestomp) and am very reluctant to get rid of Wave because it’s such an effective utility – so I guess it’ll replace Arcane Blast. It’s a shame that I’ll be losing some of my single-target spike, but I guess it has better utility and might prove to up my dps if I can get people stuck in fields enough.
Okay yeah the Signet of Earth is great fun – can use the immobilise to decap/fullcap, escape, or trap someone in my AoEs or my allies’ attacks. Woooo.
