Guild Wars 2

Hey ele community I almost exclusively play pvp and play a lot of tournaments in the mists and feel staff ele is not strong enough. Here are my suggestions!

Overall this is an attempt to make staff viable in spvp without improving its pve or WvWvW quality too much.

Make all #1 auto attack projectile speeds a bit faster.

1 Fire – Lava Font – Make it hit right when it hits the ground like back in the beta weekends, not many people probably remember this ^.^

4 Fire – Burning Retreat – Add a damage portion to the beginning of it like a reverse burning speed but less damage.

1 Water – Water Blast – Add some more damage to it nothing major. Maybe make the healing aoe around the hit target a bit bigger.

5 Water – Healing Rain – Castable while moving (maybe, maybe not)

2 Air – Lightning Surge – Lower the cast time to 1 second, possibly less

3 Air – Gust – Add some nice damage to it that also has a very small aoe around it exactly like ride the lightning. Maybe lower the cooldown a bit.

4 Earth – Unsteady Ground – Add some more power damage to it so it can be used well against downed targets.

Remove the trait in arcana that makes staff skills larger, it should be baseline for staff. ( I think a lot of traits that are specifically needed to make a certain weapon/kit be viable should be removed but that’s another topic.) The 20 point major is very powerful for ele and being forced to take this trait weakens the ele a lot in Spvp. I imagine a new staff trait taking its place to match the scepter and dagger improvement traits in the same tier but I’m not sure what that could be. Brain storm away!

If this makes staff too powerful in pve or WvWvW then making changes only in spvp to the staff may be the only way to make it viable there.

Phantaram.1265:

Hey ele community I almost exclusively play pvp and play a lot of tournaments in the mists and feel staff ele is not strong enough. Here are my suggestions!

Overall this is an attempt to make staff viable in spvp without improving its pve or WvWvW quality too much.

Make all #1 auto attack projectile speeds a bit faster.

1 Fire – Lava Font – Make it hit right when it hits the ground like back in the beta weekends, not many people probably remember this ^.^

4 Fire – Burning Retreat – Add a damage portion to the beginning of it like a reverse burning speed but less damage.

1 Water – Water Blast – Add some more damage to it nothing major. Maybe make the healing aoe around the hit target a bit bigger.

5 Water – Healing Rain – Castable while moving (maybe, maybe not)

2 Air – Lightning Surge – Lower the cast time to 1 second, possibly less

3 Air – Gust – Add some nice damage to it that also has a very small aoe around it exactly like ride the lightning. Maybe lower the cooldown a bit.

4 Earth – Unsteady Ground – Add some more power damage to it so it can be used well against downed targets.

Remove the trait in arcana that makes staff skills larger, it should be baseline for staff. ( I think a lot of traits that are specifically needed to make a certain weapon/kit be viable should be removed but that’s another topic.) The 20 point major is very powerful for ele and being forced to take this trait weakens the ele a lot in Spvp. I imagine a new staff trait taking its place to match the scepter and dagger improvement traits in the same tier but I’m not sure what that could be. Brain storm away!

If this makes staff too powerful in pve or WvWvW then making changes only in spvp to the staff may be the only way to make it viable there.

I agree with most of this and I would even dare to to say that it would be great if we had a small base stats increase and/or making autoattacks more rewarding by making them faster, hard hitting besides fire and increase their projectile speed as well as decreasing casting times (1 second casting, seriosuly? and afterthat it takes an eon to connect…..if the enemy isnt smart enough to just roll it…)

Phantaram.1265:

3 Air – Gust – Add some nice damage to it that also has a very small aoe around it exactly like ride the lightning. Maybe lower the cooldown a bit.

Also, make the projectile track targets or increase the projectile speed. This thing is seriously hard to hit anyone that’s not running straight at you or standing still. An alternative to aoe is to make it pierce like earth5.

Phantaram.1265:

4 Earth – Unsteady Ground – Add some more power damage to it so it can be used well against downed targets.

I’d like to see a longer cripple, or maybe even a knockdown component; something to justify the 30 second cooldown.

Phantaram.1265:

Remove the trait in arcana that makes staff skills larger, it should be baseline for staff. ( I think a lot of traits that are specifically needed to make a certain weapon/kit be viable should be removed but that’s another topic.) The 20 point major is very powerful for ele and being forced to take this trait weakens the ele a lot in Spvp. I imagine a new staff trait taking its place to match the scepter and dagger improvement traits in the same tier but I’m not sure what that could be. Brain storm away!

If this makes staff too powerful in pve or WvWvW then making changes only in spvp to the staff may be the only way to make it viable there.

If for some miraculous reason Anet does decide to make the trait baseline:

1. Don’t replace it, make the aoe even larger
2. Staff skills for the current attunement recharge faster
3. Staff skills that leave something on the field/map become unblockable (fire2, fire4, water4, air5, earth4)
4. The above skills stay on the field longer
5. Increase staff skills’ condition duration
6. Something similar to glyph of elemental power for staff
7. ???

1. Improve fire and air base damage. Pound for pound if I trait earth I do more damage with earth than if I used fire while traited for fire. These should be equal.
2. Take out the stupid AoE cap. If I dump a meteor shower on a zerg of 20 people I expect to hit 20 people, not 5.
3. Reduce casting times. A fireball every 1.4 seconds is a fireball 0.6 seconds too late. Traiting in a line should reduce the cast times (adept 0.2 seconds, master 0.4 seconds, grand master 0.6 seconds).
4. Please make a decision: is the staff a melee weapon or a range weapon? If it’s a range weapon, make burning retreat a utility skill and give us something more appropriate.
5. Fix the aimer so that when I switch to a new target I don’t automatically miss on my next projectile. It’s inevitable, when I switch targets, my fireball goes off in the wrong direction and misses.

Just reduce cast times. That ought to work. Elementalists get so many combo fields, but due to excessively long cast times, it’s difficult if not impossible to benefit from most if not all of them. Furthermore, having a nice 1~2 second cast on every single skill means that a thief can pop in, say hello with a burst of 10k damage, and stealth before you even get a single attack in. Yeah. That’s nice. This is why d/d is better. Most of their skills instantly cast while on the move.

Staff ele just feels so clunky since you can’t really kite effectively (no blink type attacks, mesmer staff #2), no extended cripples (necromancer scepter #2), and of course, you have to give up your kite to cast any of your strongest skills (meteor shower, healing rain) which your enemy can simply walk out of to win.

If you give up on the ability to 1v1, though…You can just run super heavy AoE zerker monofire build and pound capture points while a charr meatshield takes the hits for you. People ignore elementalists that hide while stuff is going on.