Guild Wars 2

Now that you’ve fallen for the blatant clickbait, I would like to preface my post by saying that this is a discussion thread aimed at resolving the issues with elementalist staff.

What’s wrong with the elementalist staff, you ask? Well, you’re obviously a GW2 game dev because otherwise you would have at least tried playing a staff ele and you’d know. So, I’ll explain it to you in a comparative analogy.

A guardian loads into a competitive game format (sPvP, WvW). They have any number of weapons at their disposal that all have practical applications whether they are roaming, scouting, defending, or zerging.

An engineer loads into a competitive game format (sPvP, WvW). They have any number of weapons at their disposal that all have practical applications whether they are roaming, scouting, defending, or zerging.

A necromancer loads into a competitive game format (sPvP, WvW). They have any number of weapons at their disposal that all have practical applications whether they are roaming, scouting, defending, or zerging.

[abbreviated so we won’t be here all day]

An elementalist loads into a competitive game format (sPvP, WvW). They decide carefully what role they are going to lock themselves into because they have only one weapon set unless they leave combat and open their inventory. They ultimately decide to go with a staff so they can run with the team. In the very first team fight, they are singled out by all the opponents for lacking manoeuvrability and close combat potential. Apply the following checklist:

[N] Not REKT [Y] REKT [Y] REKTangle [Y] SHREKT [Y] REKT-it Ralph [Y] Total REKTall [Y] The Lord of the REKT [Y] The Usual SusREKTs [Y] North by NorthREKT [Y] REKT to the Future [Y] Once Upon a Time in the REKT [Y] The Good, the Bad, and the REKT [Y] LawREKT of Arabia [Y] Tyrannosaurus REKT [Y] eREKTile dysfunction

The elementalist proceeds to spend the entirety of the round in downed state, employing only four skills in their constant struggle to survive.

Every other class that uses staff has the ability to switch weapons, and even then they have skills which are friendly to close combat. Consider the mesmer. They:

• Have a trait that grants them toughness and reduced recharge on all staff abilities
• Have skills that give manoeuvrability (Phase Retreat)
• Have skills that give defence (Chaos Armour)

All without changing attunements or anything!

When safely atop a wall out of melee range, a staff with an ele can shape the battlefield. But otherwise they are just offering their opponent another bludgeoning weapon to use against them.

So, the solution is to retool the staff skills to actually work outside very specific circumstances. Below are my suggestions:

Burning Retreat (Fire 4)
Change to: Quickly roll in a target’s direction, leaving behind a line of fire that burns. [You get to choose the direction, as per warrior GS3]
Reduce recharge to 10 seconds (again, to be in line with warrior GS3)

Gust (Air 3)
Change to: Teleport to target location and push foes backward with a burst of air.
Range: 1,200
Reduce recharge to 20 seconds

Frozen Ground (Water 4)
Add: You gain swiftness in this field [I guess because you skate along while your opponents fall…]

These are just a few of my ideas which I think would make a considerable difference. It would also help to gain toughness when using a staff.

Other suggestions are welcome.

I don’t get this. Staff ele is already obnoxiously hard to kill. I’d agree with a few tweaks to air attunement maybe, but this is way out of scope.

A 1200 range 20 second cooldown teleport with AoE hard cc causewhythehellnot. Seriously?

The only thing staff ele lacks atm is the niche air attunement is supposed to fill. Respectable single target pressure.

Buff air 1 and/or 2 and/or 3 and we’ll be gold. Even outside 3v3+

um, staff eles are fine, l2p

Well besides the egregious overblown hyperbole, I found the numerous uses of REKT to be entertaining at least.

I kinda sorta like your suggestion for Gust, but pretty much anything would be an improvement from what it is now. Gust feels broken. In a bad way.

As in, even at point blank the skill doesn’t always connect and if they’re any sort of distance from you, it’s pretty much wasted. This skill needs to be fixed or reworked.

Burning Retreat works great for what it does and it’s easy to go where you want by shifting the camera opposite of where you wanna go.

I don’t know what more could be added to Frozen Ground. Swiftness doesn’t make sense. Maybe add more chill time to punish those who try to stay in it?

I do think it needs to be a little more punishing for the enemy than it is now. I think Ice Spike (Water Staff 2) needs to be buffed for the same reason.

It either needs to do a lot more damage, needs more vulnerability stacks, longer lasting vulnerability, or keep it the same and simply make it a blast finisher.

Blast finishers are niiiiice.

Even if the cool down is short, the wind up is ridiculously easy to see and dodge. This skill really needs to punish players that get nailed by it.

Shatterstone (Scepter Water 2) has the same issue. It needs something more, something punishing to make up for the huge tell it has.

These spammable long wind up skills aren’t going to hit a savvy player often, but it needs to be punishing if you manage it.

These bits aside, I don’t agree that staff is in a bad place. It’s one of our best weapons and one of the best staff specs in the game. It’s a potent support and AD weapon.

I can’t really complain. If these few things could be addressed, I’d be a happy(ier) magus.

Also, Anet, when you make Blasting Staff baseline, please fix the weird bug where older characters in PvE don’t get an updated AoE radius circle.

That messes with me sometimes. I bet a lot of your veterans would appreciate it! And, that’s my two coppers worth.

I was sure this was going to say, “Increase base Ele HP” or “Stop designing/balancing our class thematically and instead balance or class like every other class in the game.” because those are both things that are simple and would totally fix everything.

Eh, gust needs to change, and I’d make Air 1 a piercing straight line shot with no travel time. Think lightning bolt from D&D. The travel time and damage against single targets of our electric cotton balls is just lackluster. A piercing ability could have its base damage upped as it isn’t guaranteed to hit multiple targets and is more of a skill shot.

Zerker staff ele is fun in pvp. all you need to do is run away and now they have 1 less guy in the fight. Honestly, staff eles will probably be even more played with all the specilization changes coming to light

As mentioned, air attunement is the biggest problem with staff currently. If the devs are to do anything, they should start there.

Just make air#2 1/4s-1/2s cast and gust like a faster shockwave (earth#5) that KB anyone in its path. That would already be a huge buff.

Kodiak.3281:

I was sure this was going to say, “Increase base Ele HP” or “Stop designing/balancing our class thematically and instead balance or class like every other class in the game.” because those are both things that are simple and would totally fix everything.

If the Ele theme and attributes are you problem then maybe an other class would be better suited for you

Actually the attributes are a problem for a large amount of people. There’s already many existing threads on why having low HP forces us to gear and/or spec a certain way in various game modes. Even though increasing our base HP would not only be consistent in terms of the way the rest of the game is balanced and also allow people to diverge out of water/arcane they likely will never do it. This really affects all builds. including staff builds.

The same goes with how we are balanced as a class: thematically. What that means is that instead of having a normal power line, a condi line, a crit line, etc (like every other class) we’re instead spread out where each condi is put based on what they match thematically. This means we have multiple condi lines with burning only in Fire and Bleeding only in Earth. A more focused Power line could really help a staff build out.

Elementalist uniquely has access to the largest variety of weapon based ranged AOE abilities. Other classes like a Necro or the upcoming Chronomancer are tied entirely to their utility slots which often gives up colossal amounts of survivability as a result (especially when compared to triple Cantrip). Revenant and the Engineer (post overhaul) have some potential we’ll have to see. While Heart of Thorns will certainly shake things up I don’t really see another class being a contender flaws or no.

CETheLucid.3964:

Burning Retreat works great for what it does and it’s easy to go where you want by shifting the camera opposite of where you wanna go.

This is simply not practical in combat.

CETheLucid.3964:

I don’t know what more could be added to Frozen Ground. Swiftness doesn’t make sense. Maybe add more chill time to punish those who try to stay in it?

I also don’t really like swiftness, but I threw it out there as a possible boon for allies who fight in the area. Maybe frost armour instead?

CETheLucid.3964:

I do think it needs to be a little more punishing for the enemy than it is now. I think Ice Spike (Water Staff 2) needs to be buffed for the same reason.

It either needs to do a lot more damage, needs more vulnerability stacks, longer lasting vulnerability, or keep it the same and simply make it a blast finisher.

Blast finishers are niiiiice.

Even if the cool down is short, the wind up is ridiculously easy to see and dodge. This skill really needs to punish players that get nailed by it.

Shatterstone (Scepter Water 2) has the same issue. It needs something more, something punishing to make up for the huge tell it has.

I am quoting this simply to emphasize that I agree.

CETheLucid.3964:

These spammable long wind up skills aren’t going to hit a savvy player often, but it needs to be punishing if you manage it.

I disagree. Not that it should be punishing to hit long windup skills, but that these skills are long windup to begin with. I think staff air autoattack needs to be significantly faster (100% faster if not 200%) and more damaging. Same thing with ice spike. Someone could propel themselves out of the affected area with nothing more than sustained flatulence before it finishes. These skills may as well just never be used for all the effect they have on a battle.

Kodiak.3281:

I was sure this was going to say, “Increase base Ele HP” or “Stop designing/balancing our class thematically and instead balance or class like every other class in the game.” because those are both things that are simple and would totally fix everything.

I am extremely hesitant to say, but I don’t think ele base HP is the issue. Would it solve a lot of issues to even raise ele base HP? Most certainly, yes. Would it create issues to raise guardian and thief base HP at the same time, as it would have to be? Again, most certainly, yes.

Guardian makes up for low HP by having heavy armour and 89073294872 ways to mitigate damage.
Thief makes up for low HP by having medium armour, the ability to go into stealth, and having the greatest manoeuvrability in the game.
Elementalist makes up for low HP by having boons, which are constantly being nerfed. Constantly.

But that’s a whole other matter. I’m talking about making the staff a well-rounded weapon that isn’t so dependent on situation.

Provost.6210:

This is simply not practical in combat.

It’s saved me countless times. Rangers do it with Sword 2 all the time.

It’s easy if you bind a key for it. Low CD, long evade frame (even if you’re rooted), puts distance, and it drops a fire field. It’s a great skill.

Provost.6210:

I also don’t really like swiftness, but I threw it out there as a possible boon for allies who fight in the area. Maybe frost armour instead?

That’d be redundant. That’s what the blast finisher does. Maybe when the skill ends it can make all enemies inside of it suffer a KD? Frozen ground is slippery.

That would be fun and give a good incentive for the enemy to get out of it ASAP/stay away from it.

Provost.6210:

I am quoting this simply to emphasize that I agree.

Good to hear it.

Provost.6210:

I disagree. Not that it should be punishing to hit long windup skills, but that these skills are long windup to begin with. I think staff air autoattack needs to be significantly faster (100% faster if not 200%) and more damaging. Same thing with ice spike. Someone could propel themselves out of the affected area with nothing more than sustained flatulence before it finishes. These skills may as well just never be used for all the effect they have on a battle.

I disagree. I understand why some of the skills are long wind ups; cowbell factor. It looks cool.

It affords the enemy a blatant counter (stop me or suffer) and a warrant to give these skills a massive payoff for the equivalent risk invested.

These types of skills are fine if they don’t make up a majority of our skill set.

And they don’t. Not many of our skills are like this. Some of these type of skills (Meteor Shower) do it right. Huge fancy cast time, great DPS reward for it.

These kind of skills absolutely need to be worth it.

Skills like Ice Spike, Shatterstone, Lightning Surge, even Eruption to a lesser extent don’t feel up to standard in that equation.

The huge tells and wind ups need to be worth the risk of enemy counter play. They need to be devastating, punishing, “yeah, I better stop ignoring that thing he’s doing”.

… That said, I could totally get behind a slightly faster Chain Lightning (Air Staff Autoattack). It does feel a bit slow for a DPS attunement called “Chain Lightning”

Provost.6210:

I am extremely hesitant to say, but I don’t think ele base HP is the issue. Would it solve a lot of issues to even raise ele base HP? Most certainly, yes. Would it create issues to raise guardian and thief base HP at the same time, as it would have to be? Again, most certainly, yes.

We agree. Ele’s base HP isn’t the issue by itself.

Blix.8021:

um, staff eles are fine, l2p

Lol no.

’’Fine’’ and ‘’Everyone picks the specs because it’s the best atm’’ is a different thing.

Provost.6210:

Elementalist makes up for THE lowEST HP AND armor by having boons, which are constantly being nerfed. Constantly.

Fixed
I would add that boons are not base class mechanic, we have to heavily trait for that, maybe more than Guardians. So no, Elementalists make up for their handicap by going celestial, or by outplaying their opponents.

MyPuppy.8970:

Provost.6210:

Elementalist makes up for THE lowEST HP AND armor by having boons, which are constantly being nerfed. Constantly.

Fixed
I would add that boons are not base class mechanic, we have to heavily trait for that, maybe more than Guardians. So no, Elementalists make up for their handicap by going celestial, or by outplaying their opponents.

Lets not forget same some class can hardcounter boon play, making the balance amazingly crappy ^^

MyPuppy.8970:

Provost.6210:

Elementalist makes up for THE lowEST HP AND armor by having boons, which are constantly being nerfed. Constantly.

Fixed
I would add that boons are not base class mechanic, we have to heavily trait for that, maybe more than Guardians. So no, Elementalists make up for their handicap by going celestial, or by outplaying their opponents.

This is the thing that makes so many people SO UPSET about the movement of ele attunement to GM: High boon access was supposed to be tool given to the class to make up for the handicap of lowest hp/armor, and the entire class (skills, utilities, other traits) were balanced around the ele having the boons from ele attunement (it started as an ADEPT trait that ALL players outside max-dps pve-players took). It is so quintessential to the class that everyone who plays the class recognizes it as part of the class mechanic.

This is also why so many people have a bleak view of the future. They are keeping all the handicaps and taking away the crutches on the class. All that will be left is a crippled class.

What also hurts is the design of weapon skills themselves. Fire>damage, Water>Heal, air/earth>cc when other classes can have cc/damage and other utilities on one weapon set without switching. Elementalist skills are too diluted so we are forced to attunement swap more often than other classes according to the situation. Attunement swap IS the basecore gameplay of ele, but we have no direct benefit from it unless we spec for whatever-on-attune, since it gives no advantage or defense mechanism whatsoever innately.

At least, if ele attunement is going GM, make it worthy, one stack of might when attune to fire is not even good enough for a minor trait.

Well I don’t have any high hopes in the future, but i’ll stick to my ele anyway. But people are so used to play ele even with all the flaws that it might become OP whenever they fix the class.

MyPuppy.8970:

At least, if ele attunement is going GM, make it worthy, one stack of might when attune to fire is not even good enough for a minor trait.

I can get behind this. Since EA is going GM, make the on attunement buffs more potent to compensate.

That’s a really good idea.

To elaborate on this further, let’s not leave the other EA out. Since we can’t have both EA’s, how about making both EA’s individually stronger choices?

Make Evasive Arcana more potent. Let the on evade procs hit harder, do more condi damage, longer burn time, bleeding, heal more, etc.

Let Elemental Attunement boons give more might stacks, longer regen, swiftness, protection.

Maybe add a thing that’ll allow EAttune to enhance Arcane Fury so that it lasts an extra second or two.

Something like this would make the EA’s individually more attractive choices and take the sting out of having to only pick one.

Staff is just kittekittenngle target damage and combined with being unable to keep Thieves from kitten you you’ve got yourself an unused weapon for small scale combat. It only shines when you can hit 5 targets at once. I guess if you are allowed to shell a small point unomolested it isn’t too bad but a pew pew Ranger can do the job for Conquest much better.

Every single time I try staff in PvP I regret it almost instantly, like right now. What a garbage weapon. I don’t even know how this made it to release.

Well sometimes it feels like trying to catch a fly with a wrecking ball but staff is actually a very good weapon in pvp when it comes to support your team both offensively and defensively. It has its flaws and drawbacks, but I couldnt play without it now.

Actually staff needs reliable auto-attacks OR redesigned auto attacks.

Earth 2 (Eruption could get a more realistic delay 1,25 cast time + 3, 25 wait time to explode, making it a 4,5 cast time. Reduce cast time to 0,75 like most Staff skil and put a 2,25 delay time for explosion, giving a nice full 3 sec to explode.)

Air 2 (It could enjoy a drammatic cast time reduction to five seconds to open a new window to Fresh Air Staff. After all, it is the only direct damaging skill in air.)

Air 3 (Gust needs to be faster and a bit wider. Currently you can jump over it to avoid the projectile: I tested it and it works. Or/And It needs a small damage for the purpose of proccing runes and on-crits.)

Earth 5 (Shockwave could have a 1500 range; because it would look nice)

To make up for other skills being easy to dodge, maybe have one of the auto-attacks yo-yo? It would appear right on the target and do damage, then slowly travel back toward you and damage other foes in its path. Then when you fire off another one, the first changes direction back toward the target to get a second hit.

Kodiak.3281:

Actually the attributes are a problem for a large amount of people. There’s already many existing threads on why having low HP forces us to gear and/or spec a certain way in various game modes. Even though increasing our base HP would not only be consistent in terms of the way the rest of the game is balanced and also allow people to diverge out of water/arcane they likely will never do it. This really affects all builds. including staff builds.

The same goes with how we are balanced as a class: thematically. What that means is that instead of having a normal power line, a condi line, a crit line, etc (like every other class) we’re instead spread out where each condi is put based on what they match thematically. This means we have multiple condi lines with burning only in Fire and Bleeding only in Earth. A more focused Power line could really help a staff build out.

Elementalist uniquely has access to the largest variety of weapon based ranged AOE abilities. Other classes like a Necro or the upcoming Chronomancer are tied entirely to their utility slots which often gives up colossal amounts of survivability as a result (especially when compared to triple Cantrip). Revenant and the Engineer (post overhaul) have some potential we’ll have to see. While Heart of Thorns will certainly shake things up I don’t really see another class being a contender flaws or no.

Just because you buff ele’s base hp or toughness doesn’t mean people will stop playing cele dd. It will just buff cele dd more then any glass build because the perma protection work better with higher hp and the higher healing of cele dd works better with high toughness. All your suggestions do not buff staff they make dd ele broken op.

Alekt.5803:

Actually staff needs reliable auto-attacks OR redesigned auto attacks.

Earth 2 (Eruption could get a more realistic delay 1,25 cast time + 3, 25 wait time to explode, making it a 4,5 cast time. Reduce cast time to 0,75 like most Staff skil and put a 2,25 delay time for explosion, giving a nice full 3 sec to explode.)

Air 2 (It could enjoy a drammatic cast time reduction to five seconds to open a new window to Fresh Air Staff. After all, it is the only direct damaging skill in air.)

Air 3 (Gust needs to be faster and a bit wider. Currently you can jump over it to avoid the projectile: I tested it and it works. Or/And It needs a small damage for the purpose of proccing runes and on-crits.)

Earth 5 (Shockwave could have a 1500 range; because it would look nice)

Pretty much this. Funny story, I have actually had gust go wide left on a target ~300 range away that wasn’t moving…that is how terrible the aim on this skill is.

If staff had even DECENT 1v1 capability it would be an excellent weapon. Currently, it is ONLY useful as a tanky point-holder for 1v1s (by stale-mating 1v1s) that can offer great damage, cc, and support in a large team-fight. They could also make this better for 1v1’s by making pulsing aoe’s, esp. lavafont, tick 1x at the start of the skill. As it is currently, it is very hard landing any damage when your opponent is trying to constrain themselves to a small point. In fact, most staff ele builds rely on stupid AI like the elite glyph and pirate runes to land actual damage ever, which is pathetic. Perhaps if conjures weren’t so worthless, but they are actually nerfing the only useful ones, so I have no hope there.

I agree that Air #2 needs a rework, maybe make it an AoE knockback in a 300 range around the Ele or something.
The teleport you described is a tad too much (I won’t complain if we get it, but it’s a bit OP to be fair).

Aside of that, I don’t think the Staff needs anything else.
Might be because I only play my Ele for Guild raids. I like it’s AoE potency and the fact that playing an Ele requires a bit more thought.

I’d start being happier if the auto-attack projectiles would actually hit their targets at reasonable ranges like the tooltip says they do.

Sadrien.3470:

Just because you buff ele’s base hp or toughness doesn’t mean people will stop playing cele dd. It will just buff cele dd more then any glass build because the perma protection work better with higher hp and the higher healing of cele dd works better with high toughness. All your suggestions do not buff staff they make dd ele broken op.

Glass builds can’t exist without more innate stats or tools to avoid damage entirely. That’s just how it is. Builds like Celestial can be adjusted by going after their Boon generation like they already are with the EA/EA both GM nerf coming up.

Kodiak.3281:

Sadrien.3470:

Just because you buff ele’s base hp or toughness doesn’t mean people will stop playing cele dd. It will just buff cele dd more then any glass build because the perma protection work better with higher hp and the higher healing of cele dd works better with high toughness. All your suggestions do not buff staff they make dd ele broken op.

Glass builds can’t exist without more innate stats or tools to avoid damage entirely. That’s just how it is. Builds like Celestial can be adjusted by going after their Boon generation like they already are with the EA/EA both GM nerf coming up.

That is true. None the less I think that your suggestion is still more potently upgrading other builds than a full glass build which needs more hard mitigation like blind and invulnerable than hp.

So I have come up with the following suggested changes/retools to elementalist staff:

FIRE
Fireball – no change
Lava Font – each 1s it should spew 4 smaller versions of itself which land in a radius 400 and last 1s, dealing half damage
Flame Burst – add Combo Finisher: Blast
Burning Retreat – roll in a target’s direction (as warrior GS3, you can pick the direction) and reduce cooldown to 15 seconds
Meteor Shower – no change

WATER
Water Blast – no change
Ice Spike – Make cast time instantaneous and reduce the animation time to 1/2 second. Make it come in like focus water 5 (Comet) rather than slowly form above the location, and add Combo Finisher: Blast
Geyser – no change
Frozen Ground – Add torment (1 stack per second in the AoE)
Healing Rain – no change

AIR
Chain Lightning – Reduce activation time to 1/4 second and increase projectile speed by 200% for primary target. Make the projectile split to arc (instantaneously) to hit secondary targets, and arc back in the same way.
Lightning Surge – Blind lasts for the full 5 seconds, as opposed to being dispelled after the first attack. Add: 5 stacks of weakness.
Gust – Completely retool this. Make it a teleport (range 900) and have it knock back nearby opponents (range 240, knockback 240). No activation time, no projectiles involved. Can still be dodged, though.
Windborn Speed – no change
Static Field – Add pulses each second the field is active that damage foes within the area of effect and apply weakness. Make this more than just a situationally-applicable choke point holder. Enemies should have to either take the damage, face the 2 second stun, or teleport out. Rename it to “Static Cage”.

EARTH
Stoning – Add a 30% chance to apply bleed (5s), no ICD.
Eruption – no change
Magnetic Aura – Reduce cooldown to 20 seconds
Unsteady Ground – no change
Shockwave – This needs to function as the weaker version of Churning Earth cast by Evasive Arcana. The current skill is extremely easy to avoid and outright glitchy. My favourite, though, is when it rebounds off someone with magnetic aura active. It’s a kittening seismic attack, yet the game considers it a projectile. Really dumb.

Thoughts?

Provost.6210:

So I have come up with the following suggested changes/retools to elementalist staff:

FIRE
Fireball – no change
Lava Font – each 1s it should spew 4 smaller versions of itself which land in a radius 400 and last 1s, dealing half damage
Flame Burst – add Combo Finisher: Blast
Burning Retreat – roll in a target’s direction (as warrior GS3, you can pick the direction) and reduce cooldown to 15 seconds
Meteor Shower – no change

WATER
Water Blast – no change
Ice Spike – Make cast time instantaneous and reduce the animation time to 1/2 second. Make it come in like focus water 5 (Comet) rather than slowly form above the location, and add Combo Finisher: Blast
Geyser – no change
Frozen Ground – Add torment (1 stack per second in the AoE)
Healing Rain – no change

AIR
Chain Lightning – Reduce activation time to 1/4 second and increase projectile speed by 200% for primary target. Make the projectile split to arc (instantaneously) to hit secondary targets, and arc back in the same way.
Lightning Surge – Blind lasts for the full 5 seconds, as opposed to being dispelled after the first attack. Add: 5 stacks of weakness.
Gust – Completely retool this. Make it a teleport (range 900) and have it knock back nearby opponents (range 240, knockback 240). No activation time, no projectiles involved. Can still be dodged, though.
Windborn Speed – no change
Static Field – Add pulses each second the field is active that damage foes within the area of effect and apply weakness. Make this more than just a situationally-applicable choke point holder. Enemies should have to either take the damage, face the 2 second stun, or teleport out. Rename it to “Static Cage”.

EARTH
Stoning – Add a 30% chance to apply bleed (5s), no ICD.
Eruption – no change
Magnetic Aura – Reduce cooldown to 20 seconds
Unsteady Ground – no change
Shockwave – This needs to function as the weaker version of Churning Earth cast by Evasive Arcana. The current skill is extremely easy to avoid and outright glitchy. My favourite, though, is when it rebounds off someone with magnetic aura active. It’s a kittening seismic attack, yet the game considers it a projectile. Really dumb.

Thoughts?

lava font sounds op,
chain lightning would be extremely op with a cast time of 1/4s and I gathered that you wanted to make staff ele balanced in 1v1s ???
static field is perfect as is and does not need buffed in any way.
your lightning surge is completely insane and makes no sense …. that would be a free kill 1v1.
The projectile component makes gust really useful in zergs but for your purposes your version is better. I think there needs to be a way to not teleport in order for this skill to be useful.

Basically 50% of your changes would make ele godmode…. you would see staff eles winning 1v1s against weapons actually designed for 1v1 90% of the time. The only parts I really see value in are the fixes to the projectiles and maybe the condi damage frost field.

Sadrien.3470:

chain lightning would be extremely op with a cast time of 1/4s and I gathered that you wanted to make staff ele balanced in 1v1s ???

Chain lightning is the most underwhelming auto attack skill in the game. I am suggesting how to make it work as it seems its supposed to. Thematically and mechanically it suffers from the fundamental issue that lightning is not a slow moving projectile. If the damage needs to be reduced slightly in order to make it balanced, that’s fine. But the mechanics of the skill are kitten right now.

Sadrien.3470:

static field is perfect as is and does not need buffed in any way

It’s a #5 skill that’s a glorified doorstop. There’s nothing perfect about it.

Sadrien.3470:

your lightning surge is completely insane and makes no sense …. that would be a free kill 1v1.

I highly doubt it. With the number of escapes/invulnerables/oh kitten buttons that other classes have, I would say that this would make staff ele more competitive in 1v1. Especially because lightning surge is so telegraphed that it’s easy to dodge. This turns it into a dangerous skill that will actually count for something if it hits, as opposed to having spent time charging the ability that would have been better spent dealing more damage with the kittenty autoattack.

Sadrien.3470:

The projectile component makes gust really useful in zergs but for your purposes your version is better. I think there needs to be a way to not teleport in order for this skill to be useful.

Teleporting is the whole point. Staff needs to have manoeuvrability, like a mesmer staff or a warrior greatsword. Every time a class has a two-handed weapon they have the ability to move around the battlefield or — with the heavily armoured guardian or highest hp necromancer — become essentially immovable. Elementalist has the weakest armour and lowest health, it needs the ability to move around the battlefield.

Sadrien.3470:

Basically 50% of your changes would make ele godmode…. you would see staff eles winning 1v1s against weapons actually designed for 1v1 90% of the time. The only parts I really see value in are the fixes to the projectiles and maybe the condi damage frost field.

Other classes can switch weapons. Elementalist can’t. The staff has to have 1v1 applicability as well as team fight options. I wouldn’t call that “godmode”, I’d call it “balance”.

Provost.6210:

Sadrien.3470:

chain lightning would be extremely op with a cast time of 1/4s and I gathered that you wanted to make staff ele balanced in 1v1s ???

Chain lightning is the most underwhelming auto attack skill in the game. I am suggesting how to make it work as it seems its supposed to. Thematically and mechanically it suffers from the fundamental issue that lightning is not a slow moving projectile. If the damage needs to be reduced slightly in order to make it balanced, that’s fine. But the mechanics of the skill are kitten right now.

Sadrien.3470:

static field is perfect as is and does not need buffed in any way

It’s a #5 skill that’s a glorified doorstop. There’s nothing perfect about it.

Sadrien.3470:

your lightning surge is completely insane and makes no sense …. that would be a free kill 1v1.

I highly doubt it. With the number of escapes/invulnerables/oh kitten buttons that other classes have, I would say that this would make staff ele more competitive in 1v1. Especially because lightning surge is so telegraphed that it’s easy to dodge. This turns it into a dangerous skill that will actually count for something if it hits, as opposed to having spent time charging the ability that would have been better spent dealing more damage with the kittenty autoattack.

Sadrien.3470:

The projectile component makes gust really useful in zergs but for your purposes your version is better. I think there needs to be a way to not teleport in order for this skill to be useful.

Teleporting is the whole point. Staff needs to have manoeuvrability, like a mesmer staff or a warrior greatsword. Every time a class has a two-handed weapon they have the ability to move around the battlefield or — with the heavily armoured guardian or highest hp necromancer — become essentially immovable. Elementalist has the weakest armour and lowest health, it needs the ability to move around the battlefield.

Sadrien.3470:

Basically 50% of your changes would make ele godmode…. you would see staff eles winning 1v1s against weapons actually designed for 1v1 90% of the time. The only parts I really see value in are the fixes to the projectiles and maybe the condi damage frost field.

Other classes can switch weapons. Elementalist can’t. The staff has to have 1v1 applicability as well as team fight options. I wouldn’t call that “godmode”, I’d call it “balance”.

You know how many builds can afford to dodge once every 5s just to avoid a guaranteed 5s blind…only s/d thieves. And even then this leaves them vulnerable to other dangerous attacks. As it is cele s staff builds are fairly strong in 1v1 scenarios and though harder to play than cele dd a good staff ele can completely shutdown a d/p thief or other melee builds. An auto attack that hits like it does now on lightning with one 3rd the cast time is extremely unbalanced especially when it gets to fight 2 opponents who are near each other ( just increase the projectile speed ). And really that is an extreme overstatement because mesmer gs auto hits for much less, A Zerker necromancer scepter auto hits for much less, and I can keep naming lower dps autos if you would like ( every auto on ele scepter for example ). Being forced into teleporting into melee range on a staff is a horrible design option, your 100% bound to die using this skill in anything larger than a 3v3. This is why I said there needs to be a way to use it without having to teleport.
Static field when combo with other skills can trap your foe in lava font, or be combined with teleport + gust for 2 lightning rod procs and is a great skill in every game mode outside of pve.

Also by that logic scepter should be a viable support + AoE cleave weapon, dagger should be able to play ranged dps etc… do you not see the flaws.

You forgot DaREKT-REKTstorm.

People seem to think staff set is in a good place right now because the only pvp mode we have right now is built around holding a node, where players are forced to stand in the aoe over time abilities. When we have the new stronghold mode, there will be more small skirmishes in the open and then people will truly see the problem with staff… The main damage skills are way to easy to predict, to the point people are able to just walk out of the field before it goes off. The easiest way I see to fixing that problem would be to lower the time it takes for the skill to connect, or for the damage to finish.

First skill would be lava font, instead of the duration being 4 seconds with the damage ticking once per second. Change it to a 2-3 second duration with the damage ticking every half a second. Then with meteor shower decrease the cast time from being almost 4 seconds to 2, or 2 1/2 seconds. Also instead of the duration being 9 seconds, lower it to 7 with the same amount of damage coming through in that interval.

With ice spike, lower the time it takes to drop to be half of what it is now, then increase the cooldown to be 6 seconds to match with eruption, and make it a blast finisher. There should be more than one blast finisher in the set, when every other set has 3 or 4, plus the leap with daggers.

Eruption could basically have the same buff, lowering the time it takes to erupt to be half of what it is now.

Then besides those core damaging abilities, gust could be made to track the enemy so its not a fail of a skill when used outside of a 100 radius. Unsteady ground should be more like gaurdians skill line of warding, where it wont fail completely when placed to close to the target. Then finally each auto attack could be made to track the enemy… it is a ranged weapon set, hitting consistently from range should be its strongpoint

I do also agree that anet is making a huge mistake making elemental attunement a gm trait. As someone stated earlier, boons and healing has always been the main thing to help ele survive which is why people have been forced into the arcana and water traitline with every successful build. There is no other class in the game that needs to trait as defensive as ele does in order to survive.

I believe the best way to fix this would be to make elemental attunement a baseline attun swap bonus, but make it so the boons are only given to the ele, not allies. Then keep the elemental attunement trait as a master trait, and make it give those same boons to allies as well so some support builds would still be encouraged to use it

sirrrock.7940:

I do also agree that anet is making a huge mistake making elemental attunement a gm trait. As someone stated earlier, boons and healing has always been the main thing to help ele survive which is why people have been forced into the arcana and water traitline with every successful build. There is no other class in the game that needs to trait as defensive as ele does in order to survive. I believe the best way to fix this would be to make elemental attunement a baseline attun swap bonus, but make it so the boons are only given to the ele, not allies. Then keep the elemental attunement trait as a master trait, and make it give those same boons to allies as well so some support builds would still be encouraged to use it

Maybe check other threads, they changed their mind.

Ah ok thats good to hear. I’ll post what i said in that thread though because I still do think a selfish version of it should be baseline so ele isnt still pidgeon holed

sirrrock.7940:

Ah ok thats good to hear. I’ll post what i said in that thread though because I still do think a selfish version of it should be baseline so ele isnt still pidgeon holed

Imo, it’s going to be a selfish EA as a minor.

Hmm, that wouldnt be to bad, as long as there would be another trait to make it share with allies. Otherwise our support in a team would be lost big time

sirrrock.7940:

Hmm, that wouldnt be to bad, as long as there would be another trait to make it share with allies. Otherwise our support in a team would be lost big time

That would be bad, because eles would be forced into Arcana again. And I assume they kept the trait that shares is with allies as GM one. So basically that would solve nothing.

Yea true, but thats what I mean. If its not a baseline thing then regardless we will still be forced into arcana. Unless they can come up with another way to give ele sustain besides boons and healing which we have to trait into