Guild Wars 2

Hi i just wanted ask why staff is in pvp meta right now?

I played staff ele long time before HoT and even after. It was fun but as tempest I wasn’t as good as d/f. D/f helped me a lot with those hordes DH in lower ranked ranks, with loads of reflects, earth skill 5 and two auras from weapons and burn condi dps is nice too.

On other hand Staff is better power dps, better cc but worse (I think) sustain and only one blast finisher (if i don’t use after shock).

Now i am in mid ruby rank i want to improve. Should i stay d/f or use Staff for now? I am sorry for my horrible engilish ;< First time posting here on forums.

Oh… But I am only sapphire! I can’t help you, sorry.

I don’t see why it matters:P

With staff you will die horribly to a good DD or Scrapper. The animation/cast time is too slow, making it unable to react to fast attacks/interruptions.

Staff is used on support Tempest more and more. Especially in the European scene. Unblockable CC are good against most of what we see in the current meta.

I know staff is better at CC but i feel that it’s only usefull thing about it:/ Power dps is great but those aoe attacks are harder to hit moving targets even with help of CC’s.

I know a while ago, I was all for df and couldn’t even imagine why staff would be better, but imo it is. Why?

1. The amount of cc. It’s just good for so many things. You can support your teammates better, you can save so many decaps, you can prevent so many resses. On df you have only one aoe cc and it’s not that amazing. Static field is just great.

2. You have more support. While it doesn’t seem like it would be so much different but it really is and the important thing is that you have also ranged support, which is really useful if you need to both hold point and heal your teammates up.

3. A bit more mobility. Burning retreat > burning speed in terms of mobility and on top of that your cc is longer range than on focus, which again helps to prevent decaps.

4. A bit more AoE damage. Most people will dodge burning speed, drake’s breath. Constant ticking AoE and meteor shower is pretty good.

You can also easily watch a point and support your teammates on Legacy or Kyhlo.

I’ve tried staff for a bit and won’t play anything else atm. However, you’re losing a bit of 1v1 capability. You can still kill stuff, except probably scrappers and mesmers. And obviously you won’t have Obsidian flesh, but lets face it. You’re support to hold a point and being invulnerable is not all that great for it. Ressing teammates is a bit harder, but all you need is a mesmer on your team to do that. You have lots cc to prevent stomps, too.

Just try it out and see how it works for you.

Edit: To be clear, I played df from Aber to Ruby and Staff from Ruby to Diamond.

Laraley.7695:

4. A bit more AoE damage. Most people will dodge burning speed, drake’s breath. Constant ticking AoE and meteor shower is pretty good.

Lava Font and Lightning Whip have about the same size AoE.

also lightning whip’s dps coefficient (1.33) is similar to fireball + 100% lava font (1.01 or 1.56, depending on if you trait fire fields). (and 100% lava font is obviously unrealistic. except on someone downed)

don’t disagree with your other points, but lightning whip’s AoE is pretty great

reikken.4961:

Laraley.7695:

4. A bit more AoE damage. Most people will dodge burning speed, drake’s breath. Constant ticking AoE and meteor shower is pretty good.

Lava Font and Lightning Whip have about the same size AoE.

also lightning whip’s dps coefficient (1.33) is similar to fireball + 100% lava font (1.01 or 1.56, depending on if you trait fire fields). (and 100% lava font is obviously unrealistic. except on someone downed)

don’t disagree with your other points, but lightning whip’s AoE is pretty great

Oh, I’m not saying it’s not, but with LW you gotta be pretty close, while Lava font is 1200 range, which can be pretty good in some situations. And well yeah, meteor shower. But you’re right, Lava font and LW is about the same.

Laraley summed it up pretty well. And because Static field and Unsteady ground are your best defenses against Revenants. The only thing staff lacks is a second aura (or maybe a leap to get the auras from fields) and another blast finisher. Oh and a more reliable gust.

Depending on your playstyle it can be very fast paced though not as much as other weapon sets. But it forces you to get a better field awareness and a wider view. And because of the long aftercasts, you have to read ennemies movements and predict their moves, while dagger and focus are more reactive weapons.

Also, the big downside is people usually don’t know how to play with staff ele in soloq. For instance when I lava font an ally, he could stay in it to reduce melee pressure and maybe get some time to pop a heal or whatever while the ennemy instinctively dodges out, but no. In fact it can be said for most ranged aoe professions: stay in your allies fields and bait your ennemies in, not out. Sometimes support feels like running after headless chickens.

gust, lava font, meteor shower

D/D is by far the best choice:

compared to Staff it has: More self-sustain, better against bursts/pressure, more mobility, much more DMG and is not as easy to interrupt. It also has no problems in 1v1’s against certain builds that can cause trouble for Staff, like scrapper or power-rev.

compared to Offhand Focus: Offhand Focus is mainly anti-powerspikes and anti-projectiles, which aren’t used anymore in the current meta. D/D, again, has more burst, self-sustain and mobility. It’s also better at holding/decapping a point cuz of Air5 and it doesn’t have a skill that is dead when holding a point alone (Earth5).

Also, tons of DMG is lost because of the anti-condition meta on focus and staff cuz they have skills that only deal conditions and don’t do power-dmg.

On Staff, the often very useless skills are: Fire 3, (Earth 2, kinda), Earth 5, Air 2 and water 4 is basically only the combo-field.
On Focus: Fire 4, Water 4
On Offhand Dagger: None.

Also, the high mobility of the Offhand Dagger is worth it’s weight in gold in the current often 3-node meta.

Staff can be pretty strong with the right comp that has enough DMG and is oriented towards teamfights and doesn’t need the Ele to hold/contest nodes. D/F is bad and D/W is a joke in PvP.

I’m not sure I can find any skill on staff useless. I have prevented more anti caps/decaps with earth 5 than I could count. Even Air 2 is good to bait out dodge at worse.

PowerBottom.5796:

compared to Offhand Focus

removes 3 conditions. you forgot that

D/F is much better than staff if you soloqueue. Staff is much better than D/F if you teamqueue OR if you have decent teammates, simply because it opens up many more opportunities, team-wise speaking (just think of waterfields).

reikken.4961:

PowerBottom.5796:

compared to Offhand Focus

removes 3 conditions. you forgot that

earth 4 is decent, of course, but overall offhand dagger is simply better than focus. If ppl start running dual DH, engi, power-rev and stuff like that again, I’d probably change back to Offhand focus, but not against the current top-builds.

But use whatever works for you, my opinion is simply that D/D is the best choice against a meta consisting of bunker-mesmer, tempest’s, druids, engi’s and condi-revs and where mobility is hugely important.