Guild Wars 2

Okay, first off, I love the Staff and I know right now it’s state is god awful. But is it still useful as Support? I know it’s not AS powerful as Guardian, but is it still viable for lets say a five man running supply camps? I just really like all the control and support heals that goes with it, and I do not like playing the Guardian class (or Engineer for that matter)

Also, do you think it will get any love in the future? Cause I don’t mind struggling with it now and figuring it out if it’s gonna get some nice new changes in the future.

What changes would you like to see?
And do any of you have some really nice support specs going on?

I’m just not interested in being in melee as D/D with a caster class, so please don’t tell me to just go D/D and avoid answering any of my questions.

I also like sceptor too, so if any of you guys wanna throw sceptor builds at me, you may, but I’m looking for mostly staff support builds (:

Sorry if my questions seemed annoying. I am only just now starting to play Ele ><

Delusion.9543:

Okay, first off, I love the Staff and I know right now it’s state is god awful. But is it still useful as Support? I know it’s not AS powerful as Guardian, but is it still viable for lets say a five man running supply camps? I just really like all the control and support heals that goes with it, and I do not like playing the Guardian class (or Engineer for that matter)

Staff is still very much useful for support and for 5man supply camp capping, just not AS useful as it used to be. Just try to avoid 1v1’s and 2v2 style skirmishes and you should be fine. Also, keep daggers in your inventory in case you need to switch on occasion.

Also, do you think it will get any love in the future? Cause I don’t mind struggling with it now and figuring it out if it’s gonna get some nice new changes in the future.

I think the Ele community hopes so. They nerfed it’s bunkering capability hard with the EA nerf (probably rightfully so), but it got no offensive or damage boosts to compensate. Hopefully these might be forthcoming (word on the street is that they’re talking about buffing the flight speed of ranger arrows to make them harder to dodge, I would think the same could be said for ALL the staff auto-attacks, so I would hope to see this).

What changes would you like to see?
And do any of you have some really nice support specs going on?

I listed some wishful changes above, and as far as specs go the standard 0/10/0/30/30 spec (or 0/0/10/30/30) is still VERY good for bunkering and support. Damage is pretty poor, but I’m not an expert on offensive staff builds (so I’ll leave those responses to others).

Sorry if my questions seemed annoying. I am only just now starting to play Ele ><

No annoyance at all, we’re glad to help. Best of luck with the Ele class, I think you’ll find it the most entertaining and exhilarating class out there (I know I do, I can barely stand to level my alts, they’re so boring in comparison).

I play 0/0/10/30/30 in WvW with a small team and I have tonnes of fun. Yes we aren’t quite as powerful pre EA fix but protection/power stacking, area swiftness, great heals and cc makes staff ele very viable as support. As long as your team mates have a fairly good understanding of the game and its mechanics, support is a rewarding role to play.
In short, make sure your team knows what field combos do what and what finishers they should be using through them, focus on ccing the right opponent at the right time and keep buffs on your allies instead of trying to deal damage.

Panas.5974:

In short, make sure your team knows what field combos do what and what finishers they should be using through them, focus on ccing the right opponent at the right time and keep buffs on your allies instead of trying to deal damage.

This is very good advice. Know when to “shockwave” (to immobilize) someone coming after your squishier friend, and/or “gust” them off of them.

In addition, when playing staff I liked to focus a lot some might call “area denial.” Static field is obviously very good for this, as if frozen ground and crippling earth (earth skill #4), but “eruption” is perfect for it. When enemy players see that red circle and stones growing out of the ground, they MOVE. Sure, eruption may never hit an enemy paying any attention whatsoever (and if they’re not paying attention, it hits like a truck and stacks a lot of bleeding, and it’s a 6s cooldown, so you can throw it out a lot), but you can use this and other AOE skills to kinda funnel enemies to where you want them to go.

My suggestion is to not read the forums since you already think that staff is “god awful” cause of it.

Staff is useful in any situation if you play it right and have all around balanced build. As in not just pure dps or pure support. Right now I’m running 0/30/0/10/30 build in sPvP as staff and I easily hold my own.

Yeah I agree that I probably shouldn’t say that it’s state is “god awkittenl” (why is awff00l replaced with kitten? lol) . I just do it to avoid being told how bad I am for trying to play staff. I know a few Elementalists who have told others they need to go D/D to be usekittenl at all, so I tried to avoid that.

Thanks all for all the replies, and I will try out those builds (:

Staff is awesome in dungeons.

As condition I enjoy 13k+ Eruptions + Blast finisher and applying weakness with Earth 1.
As glass cannon I enjoy standing at 1200 range slinging fireballs and laying down lava font fire fields for the party.

Bsquared.3421:

Delusion.9543:

Okay, first off, I love the Staff and I know right now it’s state is god awful. But is it still useful as Support? I know it’s not AS powerful as Guardian, but is it still viable for lets say a five man running supply camps? I just really like all the control and support heals that goes with it, and I do not like playing the Guardian class (or Engineer for that matter)

Staff is still very much useful for support and for 5man supply camp capping, just not AS useful as it used to be. Just try to avoid 1v1’s and 2v2 style skirmishes and you should be fine. Also, keep daggers in your inventory in case you need to switch on occasion.

Also, do you think it will get any love in the future? Cause I don’t mind struggling with it now and figuring it out if it’s gonna get some nice new changes in the future.

I think the Ele community hopes so. They nerfed it’s bunkering capability hard with the EA nerf (probably rightfully so), but it got no offensive or damage boosts to compensate. Hopefully these might be forthcoming (word on the street is that they’re talking about buffing the flight speed of ranger arrows to make them harder to dodge, I would think the same could be said for ALL the staff auto-attacks, so I would hope to see this).

What changes would you like to see?
And do any of you have some really nice support specs going on?

I listed some wishful changes above, and as far as specs go the standard 0/10/0/30/30 spec (or 0/0/10/30/30) is still VERY good for bunkering and support. Damage is pretty poor, but I’m not an expert on offensive staff builds (so I’ll leave those responses to others).

Sorry if my questions seemed annoying. I am only just now starting to play Ele ><

No annoyance at all, we’re glad to help. Best of luck with the Ele class, I think you’ll find it the most entertaining and exhilarating class out there (I know I do, I can barely stand to level my alts, they’re so boring in comparison).

I’ve played defensive and offensive staff ele. If you want to go offensive, theres really no inbetween. Go all glass or go all defense. GW2 doesnt allow for being in the middle ground. Going glass is fun though. You can dish out massive AoE damage. It’s crazy. I play DD ele now but I got much more kills (prob assist kills but.. you know) with staff ele. Condition is also viable and works well because you spec into water and earth and both provide excellent protection while earth helps with condition damage.

So, pick one: go yo-yo ele and bunker it up, go all glass, or play the war of attrition with condition damage.