Guild Wars 2

In what situations would it actually make any sense to use D/W in PVE, over Staff (i know D/F has niche usage, no need to involve that).

D/W has slightly better mobility than staff, two blast finishers, and heat sync.
D/W has worse range, worse aoe, worse optimal DpS, worse CC/break and worse healing than staff.

When and where would it actually be worth the loss of all that? I see lots of D/W eles in maguuma, usually in the process of being dead or running in circles trying to kite stuff with their terrible range and lack of CC. Is it a raid-specific thing, or are they (often 169-mastery players) just doing it wrong?

Ok, i know this will draw all sorts of QQ about meta and tons of uninformed opinions – if you are not able to back up with a little actual logic or evidence, aside from “some guide says”, please refrain from posting.

Staff is not good vs mobile enemies and not optimal vs small hit box. While d/w is good in these situation.
Also d/w offer more heals, support and give you the possinility to interrup your rotation without lose too much dps thanks by fresh air.
If you swap out of fire as staff ele you are doing nothing for 10sec or more if you have used fire overload.

Also to be honest, for me play staff fire is really boring. So I usually prefere to play fresh air.
It’s not true that staff offer more healing, d/w does. Also Dagger warhonr offer better cc for breack bar.

d/w is easier to work in healing and defense into a dps rotation, and it has much more consistent dps, and it’s easier to dodge attacks, since it has mobility skills and freedom of movement during a normal damage rotation. It’s just more versatile in general, outside of being limited to short range.

And yeah, d/w has amazing healing. much better than staff. water 5->4->3(blast)->earth 4 (blast) = massive heal combo, like having a second healing skill. What d/w doesn’t have that staff does is condition clear.