Guild Wars 2

Hey guys, I think we can all agree that staff atm is a bit clunky outside of large scale WvW. Therefore I’d like to propose some changes that would make it a bit more viable outside of large scale combat without making it too strong.

1. Chain Lightning:
- Half casting time, Buff first hit damage by 20%, nerf bouncing hits by 20% each.
Making this a decent ranged AA with decent damage. More effective against single target.

2. Lightning Surge:
- Make this 1/4 second casting time or instant. No further changes. A blind is only usefull if you have the time to pop before you see a bit hit coming therefore reducing the casting time would make it more valuable in small scale combat along with some nice burst.

3. Gust:
- Make this reliable! It just doesn’t work half of the time. Or change it to a PBAoE knockback like the engineer shield skill number 4.

4. Lava Font:
- Let the damage start as soon as you drop it! It’s a really obvious skill and therefore atleast being able to secure one hit is a huge improvement.

I think these 4 changes would give staff the proper buffs to not be a free kill when not surrounded by a large group and give it some viability outside of large scale fights or some mediocre support builds in tPvP/sPvP. Let me know what you think!

Em what? Staff is awesome on WvW. Great AoE, and u can keep up combo fields almost all the time.

Naustis.8510:

Em what? Staff is awesome on WvW. Great AoE, and u can keep up combo fields almost all the time.

Please reread my post

Change to Chain Lightning is good.

Air 2 change would be insane. Make Air 2 instant, only blind the target and do half the damage it does now. This would make Staff viable with Fresh Air.

Gust changes are fine.

Lava Font is awesome, leave it alone.

Like he said in his post, outside of large scale WvW where enemies are actually focusing on you or can easily get to you staff really starts to fall flat unless you’re just stalling people. Back to the suggestions though, they all seem pretty reasonable.

Another change I’d like to see personally is just a universal casting time for the auto attacks on staff, not just chain lightning. They should all be 1 second IMO instead of the 1.3 to 1.5 they are now. Possibly even change ice spike to either apply more/longer vulnerability or hit faster because as it stands almost no one gets hit with it unless you slow/immobilize them first.

That reminds me I really should bring my ele back into WvW. I used to run it all the time last year when it was one of the weakest builds in game. My one suggestion then was that we should have a couple of skills that use the Staff as a martial artist would use a Bo Staff. For example Gust, let it become a skill that we slam the staff down as a knock back and blast finisher? Even better, another could be like a Warrior or Guardian’s Hammer #4. I think that would make staff feel much more epic and our character’s more skillful.

The suggestions for air would be awesome. As it stands right now, i only switch to air for the lightning field and the attunement zap. I love surge, but it is waaaaay too predictable. I completely agree about gust as well. Beautiful when it works, but that’s more rare than not.

Lava font is almost useless in duels or small man encounters, other than showing the enemy where not to stand. Having the damage start on cast would at least let the thing tick once before they leave it

Having a blast finisher on staff would be absolutely amazing.

Brigg.3961:

The suggestions for air would be awesome. As it stands right now, i only switch to air for the lightning field and the attunement zap. I love surge, but it is waaaaay too predictable. I completely agree about gust as well. Beautiful when it works, but that’s more rare than not.

Lava font is almost useless in duels or small man encounters, other than showing the enemy where not to stand. Having the damage start on cast would at least let the thing tick once before they leave it

Having a blast finisher on staff would be absolutely amazing.

We do, it is Eruption. A stable cycle is to put eruption down then switch to earth for Fire field. It will explode in the field.

Although it is impossible to pull off in 1v1 duel unless you immobilize them (shockwave on earth 5 can do that along with earth signet).

You can also use Eruption at max staff distance (so you can run into it) switch to air for lightning field and get AOE swiftness then follow up with air 4 for more AOE swiftness (and elemental attunement gives even more AOE swiftness). Great for running around.

Gust and lightning surge yes. Others no. I actually would rather have them nerf the autoattacks as much as possible, and eventual balancing would cause them to buff cooldown powers.

Give me more 5-second cast high damage aoe skills, and make them 1500 range.

I want to call down death and devastation from the skies, before I take a hit and die!

Brigg.3961:

TLava font is almost useless in duels or small man encounters, other than showing the enemy where not to stand. Having the damage start on cast would at least let the thing tick once before they leave it

Other than trying to set up an eruption-shockwave-lava font combo, I will sometimes use lava font as a defensive tool against melee players. I can drop the lava font in front of me, and they are forced to stand in it to come at me. Mind, you, I will probably want to be kiting them if they are melee, but it’s a way of getting damage in smaller encounters.

Otherwise you can just use it for the fire field or to try and use it control space.

My only problem with staff in WvW is how much you need to be babysat because you have zero mobility/defense tools in it.

Whether you live or die when focused depends not a single bit on what you do, but what your teammates must do for you.

P.S. Just like thief’s black powder, experienced melee know that they can stand just outside of lava font and still hit you with melee.

Yeah it would be nice is Gust worked. The last 15 times I used it nothing happened.

It’s true, I never use Lightning Surge except to tag Dolyaks (it’s the only Staff attack that hits instantly after it finishes casting). I rarely even bother attempting to cast Gust because it just misses unless you’re right next to your opponent.

I don’t really see how you could make the weapon viable in gametypes other than large-scale WvW and PvE considering it’s meant to be a weapon that mostly deals with combo fields and large aoe attacks which are naturally easy to get around.

Chain Lightning — make the lightning travel FASTER. It’s LIGHTNING you know.

Gust – make it hit a group of targets in front of you and not single target, sort of like how Flame Burst works.

Lava Font – agree, damage as soon as it drops.

Eruption – cut the delay time by half. It takes too long — though I realize some people like that so they can switch attunements for combo field. But if we had:

Flame Burst – should be a a blast finisher. We need a blast finisher outside of earth.

Water 1 – give it a chill on hit effect

Maybe this makes us too strong, I don’t know. But I know that staff needs some loving, too.

Then viola! Great to use. Maybe overpowered. I don’t know. But come on give us a bone for once.

Xernth.8561:

Change to Chain Lightning is good.

Air 2 change would be insane. Make Air 2 instant, only blind the target and do half the damage it does now. This would make Staff viable with Fresh Air.

Gust changes are fine.

Lava Font is awesome, leave it alone.

Air 2 change wouldn’t be crazy. Many classes have skills that do dmg and blind or daze instantly. It’s single target and hits one person. I’d rather instead of decreasing the dmg, they just made the CD 15 seconds… sorta like combining scepter air 2 and 3.

i like the op’s changes. Air 3 as a slam your staff into the ground and pbaoe knockback sounds great and wouldn’t be overpowered in zergs, but useful in duels and small scale combat.

I would like to see Air 1 made into a single target high damage AA for staff. no chain at all.

Instead move the chain lightning to air 2, with 3-5 bounces, that reduce damage by 20% each time, with a blind on the first target, 1/4 second cast time.

Why can’t Chain Lightning be channeled like Scepter #1 but fork off to 4 targets, load it upfront with damage and reduce it for the amount of players hit? Or work more like Mesmer GS #1?

Why can’t Gust have the same angle spread as Guardian staff #1 or work similar to Mesmer greatsword #5?

Why can’t Lava Font apply a cripple or knockdown since a mini volcano is being called up out the earth (if that is the justification for no instant damage).

Why can’t our channelled skills like Meteor Shower, Healing Rain and Churning Earth be reverted back to the beta mechanic of holding down the button to charge the skill and having it fire at relative power based on when we release it?

Why the kitten does a relatively tanky class like a Ranger and a class with better “attunements” like the Engineer have traits to increase their range to 1500 and we don’t!

Resouled.5614:

4. Lava Font:
- Let the damage start as soon as you drop it! It’s a really obvious skill and therefore atleast being able to secure one hit is a huge improvement.

In the case you don’t know, Lava font was like this in the early stage of the game, got nerfed though because it was “too strong”. But the problem wasn’t in the first instant tick, the problem was in the ppl not moving at all in PvP (I destroyed almost everyone in beta with staff, because you know what happens if you don’t move in this game, right?)

These would all be excellent changes.

It would be nice if eruption crippled while it was churning so that we could land it more reliably.

Stoning is a bit lackluster, maybe a chain skill?

Edit: wrong skill

CallousEye.5018:

It would be nice if churning earth crippled while it was churning so that we could land it more reliably.

It already does that. That’s why it’s considered a channeled skill in the context of gw2.

Adastra.9821:

CallousEye.5018:

It would be nice if churning earth crippled while it was churning so that we could land it more reliably.

It already does that. That’s why it’s considered a channeled skill in the context of gw2.

Ah my bad, I meant eruption…

i do like the idea of cripple on eruption very much if it ever stay at such a long animation..

zitounae.4803:

i do like the idea of cripple on eruption very much if it ever stay at such a long animation..

Yeah, Eruption definitely deserves the same effect like Churning earth has, cripple for the “charging” duration. Although it would have a little impact on solo PvE, who cares? The skill will be usable everywhere with this upgrade

Staff is honestly fine as it stands. The only thing that needs any re-working is [Gust].

People just don’t use it so I guess they don’t realize that [Lightning Surge] hits with the same base damage and damage coefficient as a meteor strike from [Meteor Shower]. It also has no projectile and you don’t have to aim it, making it very strong already. Lowering the cast-time to anything lower than 1 1/4 second would make it pretty broken unless you removed a lot of the damage, and that wouldn’t be great because it would take away a lot of the staff’s spike potential.

[Lava Font] is an incredibly balanced skill. It deals loads of AoE damage and can force an opponent to rethink how they move on a battlefield or pay for it dearly. Just lead your target if you want to hit something with it.

I guess that you could argue that [Chain Lightning] could maaaaaybe use a buff, but making it deal 20% more damage on the first strike and halving the cast-time is NOT the way to do it. It already hits for 1-1.2k in full pvp zerkers as it stands and making it activate 33% faster on top of giving it a flat damage buff would just make it completely broken. If anything, buff the subsequent shocks’ damage. That way it becomes a better tool with more enemies around.

point was “outside of large scale battles”

staff is useless in small fight since slow cast/long animation/very easy dodge.
Staff is good against zerg in the middle of chaos; and as long as you hide in your own zerg.

zitounae.4803:

point was “outside of large scale battles”

staff is useless in small fight since slow cast/long animation/very easy dodge.
Staff is good against zerg in the middle of chaos; and as long as you hide in your own zerg.

This is thought from a WvW standpoint. WvW is inherently imbalanced because of the highly inflated stats and the wildly fluctuating player numbers in a given fight. It’s a much better idea to balance from a PvP perspective where the stats and numbers are more balanced. Besides, Elementalist staff is already a great 2v2 buddy and can hold its own in a 1v1 against some opponents if played well enough (even though it’s clearly not a 1v1 weapon).

As someone who plays staff pretty much exclusively in solo PvP, I’m pretty happy with it at the moment and really have no complaints. The only thing I would really like to see is a blast finisher added to Ice Spike. Other than that, I think staff is in a really good place. Over the past few months, I’ve been seeing more and more staff eles in solo PvP, with quite a few of them performing very well. I would expect to see this trend continue as I really feel this class and specifically, this weapon, are very much underrated.

It’s a stance class, so naturally it’s going to be perceived as inferior as the average player would simply prefer not to put in the extra key strokes to manage stance dancing and definitely prefers to have relatively unrestricted access to skills on demand. However, for those who enjoy a more engaging and challenging game play experience, the class is great and it pays dividends for those who can really squeeze the most out of the mechanic.

As for the general assertion that the staff ele is useless outside of large-scale WvW encounters, I hear that a lot, especially at the beginning of a match when someone notices that I’m staff. In most cases, this is simply an example of players parroting what they hear and read, not a player who has really explored the weapon and the play style, as I really think the staff shines for point control, which is the only game mode right now. I’m almost always able to land just about everything I throw down if the opposition is interested in contesting or holding a point. If so, they are going to be forced to eat everything. If not, they aren’t on point and I am.

It’s about positioning and stance management for sure, but if you do it right, you can easily keep up a pretty consistent burn/bleed combo. With cripple/chill and the CC available to you, good positioning should allow you to set up additional burst on top of the burn/bleed which for me ticks for about 1200-1300 per second. I like to use Carrion and stack might so I’m also getting more out of DD attacks on top of the bleed/burn. Eruption>Fire>Lava Font>Flame Burst>dodge in>Flame Retreat>Meteor Shower + Armor of Earth hurts like crazy. Following up with Air/Water can also add to that burst during the tail-end of your Meteor Shower. Throwing all that down on top of someone right in your face while you have Stability up is comical. When Stability isn’t available, Lighting Flash at the beginning of your channel also helps to give you enough time to finish.

I know some will still insist that combos like this can’t be landed, but the fact is that they can be as I’m seeing it done every day. It just takes practice. And, like I said, it’s about point control in sPvP, and if they have to move off point to repeatedly miss your attacks… they aren’t on point and you are. Outside of point control, like around the Orb in Spirit Watch, landing attacks can be more challenging, but you are still able to control a general area and dictate the positioning of the fight to some extent. In both cases, it’s about positioning and timing. Lay things down where you think the fight is about to be, not where it is.

Either way, I’m happy with staff and I think once people give it a good solid look, we’ll be seeing more staff users in all areas, but specifically in sPvP. I’ve seen quite a few doubters turned believers after watching how it can perform in match play. And, yes, I understand that someone will say “but X class can do this better” or "but you don’t see any in “high-end” tourney". As to the former, all classes have their unique features and it’s more about how you build and play. As for the latter, who cares?

Here’s my build set up for anyone who is interested:

Smaul Volcker Staff Ele

I’m still working through different variations, landing here after starting with a beefier condition-focused bunker, but I found that with just focusing on condition damage alone, I wasn’t as effective taking down targets. With this, I still have decent survivability, but the damage is much better, allowing me to better maximize the utility of more abilities.

Have fun!

ArcticPanzerWolf.7692:

I’m almost always able to land just about everything I throw down if the opposition is interested in contesting or holding a point. If so, they are going to be forced to eat everything. If not, they aren’t on point and I am.

I’m sorry to only pull that bit out, and also not trying to discredit what you wrote, but don’t you think that is actually a problem? Out of 3 game modes, only one is sufficiently effective when your target CHOOSES to eat your damage?

What about outside of the glowing circle?

staffs hot right now, the most op players in Tspvp are staff players.
this one is new and is on the up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYv8h7bEYyU

Gamble.4580:

staffs hot right now, the most op players in Tspvp are staff players.
this one is new and is on the up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYv8h7bEYyU

I really can’t figure out if this is supposed to be a joke.

no its not, staff is amazing in team roam spvp tpvp wvwvw, its just annoying and hard to play.

Im happy with all but 3 skills.

Air 2 should chain and hit multiple times and proc multiple shorter blinds, turning it into a ‘supression’ skill.

Air 3 should have a shortened range and work like a wave, not a projectile.

Earth 5 is pretty debatable. It’s strong when casting it on a pass, but the immobilize wave feels too slow and unreliable for a skill on a sizeable cooldown.

While I do think Air 2 needs some love, I think it gets a bit too much hate. It does good damage in a nice AoE and can’t be avoided by simply sidestepping. And it AoE blinds. Sure it has a VERY obvious telegraph animation and a pretty long cast time, but some of that can be negated by using it at the right time. Like, I like to start casting it while I’m approaching but still out of range, such that it goes off just as I enter range, as an opening attack. In this way it has almost no opportunity cost.