Guild Wars 2

What do you think if staff ele gets a buff across the table for all non-fire spells damage increases by 25%, fire a 10%.

Fire #2 was more like necros mark where the first tick is instant, perhaps hits harder than the rest.

Air #1 could bounce off you.

Making air gust #3 a 90/120 degree PBAoE cone with 900 for 90 degre or 120 degree for 600 range

Earth #4 applying 5 stacks of torment

You could detonate Earth #2 earlier for double CD.

Thoughts?

- I like your suggestion for Lava Font.
- The Chain Lightning change would be interesting, however I don’t think they would ever implement something like that. Not sure how I feel about it.
- Anything is better than Gust in it’s current state honestly.
- Unsteady ground might be a bit too strong if it applied torment (every tick?). I’d be happy if it applied a 3 second cripple instead of just 2.
- How much earlier are we talking about?

I dunno. I’m excited yet nervous for the staff changes they proclaim are going to happen. Ideally I just want to have better responsiveness, faster cast times for autoattacks, and better accuracy with abilities like Gust. Your Lava Font suggestion is a great idea imo.

I’d much rather have Air #1 become a single target attack and #2 become chain lightning, and both actually hit hard.

All spells may be a bit too much, as stuff like Shockwave, Ice Spike and Blinding Surge hit quite hard already. The main issue is actually landing them. Insofar the auto attacks go, I’d agree though. I also like your idea for Lava Font.

Vile.5678:

I dunno. I’m excited yet nervous for the staff changes they proclaim are going to happen. Ideally I just want to have better responsiveness, faster cast times for autoattacks, and better accuracy with abilities like Gust. Your Lava Font suggestion is a great idea imo.

Out of curiosity, where did they say staff changes are coming?

Fortus.6175:

What do you think if staff ele gets a buff across the table for all non-fire spells damage increases by 25%, fire a 10%.

Fire #2 was more like necros mark where the first tick is instant, perhaps hits harder than the rest.

Air #1 could bounce off you.

Making air gust #3 a 90/120 degree PBAoE cone with 900 for 90 degre or 120 degree for 600 range

Earth #4 applying 5 stacks of torment

You could detonate Earth #2 earlier for double CD.

Thoughts?

i would love any buff to the staff. but think it would take alot more, here is my wishlist of changes:

edited my skills due to blast finishers being to powerfull reposted them more balanced: see bottom

^

ok, maybe my post needed some more, but yours is wayyyy to much, pretty much everything is a blast finisher, even I can see how OP that would be, considering that you also increase damage.

Blast finishers probably should be fire #4 at the poitn where it started, some cool things like casting lava font on yourself or geyser and then using that can be something I can see happening.

Ice spike (water 2) has a pretty decent damage coefficient laready, perhaps make it a blast finisher isnt too bad but I would rather have a blast finisher on command that another delayed one (earth 2), so I would say for water I would like to see ice spike on lesser detonation, maybe a little less damage and 10 vulnerability instead, that way Im not increase my damage but instead doing a blast plus some nasty group buff for my allies.

As for lighting, for being a single target element is definitely underwhelming, perhaps #2 should hit harder, a LOT harder, enough to justify the long CD.

I know we all want more ways to be able to use our fields (the reason why we are so weak is “justified” by Anet because we got too many fields) so maybe reduce the CD on blasting arcane spell to 15-20 CD, and the projectile to 10.

Would create some cool mechanic and allow us to make use of the fields by ourselves.

It is like having a bakery and as the owner you cant get our own cakes unless you sell them to someone adn then they are resold to you for a higher prices, a net lose.

Fortus.6175:

^

ok, maybe my post needed some more, but yours is wayyyy to much, pretty much everything is a blast finisher, even I can see how OP that would be, considering that you also increase damage.

.

even wtih ALL this. any good warriar or necro would Laugh at you while he simply smacks you down as an insect… so i really dont see how it is op

dont forget that the VAST majority of your dps is easily negated by something as simple as dodge.
the blast finisher is to get in line with other weapons and every other class since the staff has nearly NO finishers worth mentioning.

the dps increase is still Very low compared to their inharent low Ehp, meaning that the dps buff is still making them die much faster then they can kill.
but with all these changes at least they will have a decent chance to win vs people without perfect dodging and if nothing else at least they can put up a decent fight like this.

Fortus.6175:

^
Ice spike (water 2) has a pretty decent damage coefficient laready, perhaps make it a blast finisher isnt too bad but I would rather have a blast finisher on command that another delayed one (earth 2), so I would say for water I would like to see ice spike on lesser detonation, maybe a little less damage and 10 vulnerability instead, that way Im not increase my damage but instead doing a blast plus some nasty group buff for my allies.

As for lighting, for being a single target element is definitely underwhelming, perhaps #2 should hit harder, a LOT harder, enough to justify the long CD.

I know we all want more ways to be able to use our fields (the reason why we are so weak is “justified” by Anet because we got too many fields) so maybe reduce the CD on blasting arcane spell to 15-20 CD, and the projectile to 10.

Would create some cool mechanic and allow us to make use of the fields by ourselves.

It is like having a bakery and as the owner you cant get our own cakes unless you sell them to someone adn then they are resold to you for a higher prices, a net lose.

giving 10vuln on 1 skill i doubt will ever happend, not that i am against it but i can see it being incredibly powerfull for a group especially with a faster hit spell. but it really needs to hit alot faster else it doesnt matter if it did a million dmg since the problem would persist the same.

surge already does a decent dmg, making the dmg of lightning higher would very quickly make it too strong, surge is instant hit. and already the dmg of #1 is going up when its only hitting one target. so think thats a pretty good buff. could be wrong and maybe it would need more.

i REALLY DISLIKE the idea of trying to force the ele into more crap like having to take specific utility skills which is pretty useless just to have use of fields which every other class does easily without wasting utility slots on it. so no i dislike that.
if you look at the combo finisher/fields on the weapon setup of other classes (considering both weapon sets then doubling them due to lower cd and usage while ele is forced into 4 attunements, you will see that the amount of finishers and fields is not far out compared to other classes and its a minor bonus for all the major handicaps the staff ele have)

skullmount.1758:

Vile.5678:

I dunno. I’m excited yet nervous for the staff changes they proclaim are going to happen. Ideally I just want to have better responsiveness, faster cast times for autoattacks, and better accuracy with abilities like Gust. Your Lava Font suggestion is a great idea imo.

Out of curiosity, where did they say staff changes are coming?

They said it previously on one of the GW2 twitch streams. Jon peters mentioned it again not too long ago. He mentioned that they are trying to make Elementalists fill the support role better in the upcoming patch. Also a change to one of conjure earth abilities to make it explode and cause bleed.

Vile.5678:

skullmount.1758:

Vile.5678:

I dunno. I’m excited yet nervous for the staff changes they proclaim are going to happen. Ideally I just want to have better responsiveness, faster cast times for autoattacks, and better accuracy with abilities like Gust. Your Lava Font suggestion is a great idea imo.

Out of curiosity, where did they say staff changes are coming?

They said it previously on one of the GW2 twitch streams. Jon peters mentioned it again not too long ago. He mentioned that they are trying to make Elementalists fill the support role better in the upcoming patch. Also a change to one of conjure earth abilities to make it explode and cause bleed.

any buff to staff is welcome. but i have lost faith in anets ability to fix the ele.
it just seems like there isnt a dev which likes mage type classes that can go in and make it feel really awesome and actually be effective as well…

Knote.2904:

I’d much rather have Air #1 become a single target attack and #2 become chain lightning, and both actually hit hard.

Strongly agree that staff needs to gain some semblance of single target damage potential & yours is a good suggestion for sure. Staff air #2 surely does suck in terms of opportunity cost & effect.

The suckiness of staff air #1 vs a single target (it’s fine vs 2+) needs to be addressed as well.

Vile.5678:

skullmount.1758:

Vile.5678:

I dunno. I’m excited yet nervous for the staff changes they proclaim are going to happen. Ideally I just want to have better responsiveness, faster cast times for autoattacks, and better accuracy with abilities like Gust. Your Lava Font suggestion is a great idea imo.

Out of curiosity, where did they say staff changes are coming?

They said it previously on one of the GW2 twitch streams. Jon peters mentioned it again not too long ago. He mentioned that they are trying to make Elementalists fill the support role better in the upcoming patch. Also a change to one of conjure earth abilities to make it explode and cause bleed.

Huh, thanks. Not really expecting much anymore, not after their promises for turrets/engineers…

The reduction on fire spells makes a near constant fire field that does equal damage and hits at same moment as fire auto attack. 5700 each for 11400 dps plus burning at 25 stacks of might. Pair with a LH ele every 3rd swing is blast finnisher and blind. LH ele if speced will easily maintain 25 stacks of might and minutes of fury with just auto hammer

zoran.4826:

The reduction on fire spells makes a near constant fire field that does equal damage and hits at same moment as fire auto attack. 5700 each for 11400 dps plus burning at 25 stacks of might. Pair with a LH ele every 3rd swing is blast finnisher and blind. LH ele if speced will easily maintain 25 stacks of might and minutes of fury with just auto hammer

-.- this is an extremely unrealistic combat scenario on pvp or even pve, the dmg numbers as well is out of wack compared to any “effective” staff build (you hit for around 3k in orr on a crit, if you are maxed out dps wise you can push that to 3,7+- for a 100% hp mob) this gives you 6- 7,4k dmg at BEST kittening far from your 11k even in pve(orr testing) -.- ,
even worse for pvp especially you get NO WHERE near 11k, not even near 6k dmg in an auto attack and 1 tick of lava font(assumes this is the spell you mean) even if both crits the target and you are in zerk gear+full dps…
you should play a staff ele in pvp for just 20 fights or so, same in dungeon runs, then do the same with a necro or worriar cookie cutter build and then come back and try to defend the stakitten effectiveness.

pve wise if the situation is set up correctly and you got other people to take the beating. the staff is ON PAR with other classes weapons but your survive is rediculessly low though and pure support is a complete wasted since other classes outshine you by far both dps and support wise there :/

it needs alot of help and the main issue with the staff(from the dps pov) is the cast time delay to hit time :/ these makes the dps extremely low if not set up perfectly where you can keep the mob in the aoe’s for the full duration without them beating the kitten out of you :P
ofc the survivability is always terrible in dps mode and the dps could easily get the increase the lower cst and delay would add to it without making it imba due to the extreme low survive

While I missed ANet’s comment about upcoming staff changes, it makes me wonder what type of support they’re going to add, since they nerfed staff’s healing capabilities. Staff’s CCs are already very good. Adding skill functions that generate team-wide boons would be fun, although other classes already do that well enough.

It’d be nice if it was something unique to Elementalists, rather than a “Jack-of-all-trades” version of something another class already does well.

Vick.6805:

It’d be nice if it was something unique to Elementalists, rather than a “Jack-of-all-trades” version of something another class already does well.

Whooo! 240 radius staff water #3 instead of 180! Oh, don’t forget the added healing bonus to our staff water #1!

We are fixed!

Forz.1725:

Vick.6805:

It’d be nice if it was something unique to Elementalists, rather than a “Jack-of-all-trades” version of something another class already does well.

Whooo! 240 radius staff water #3 instead of 180! Oh, don’t forget the added healing bonus to our staff water #1!

We are fixed!

well unless you can target friendly targets with it i am not that happy :/ hate how its an melee only support, it its quite weak when considering you need to stay in water to do it.

Erebus.7568:

Forz.1725:

Whooo! 240 radius staff water #3 instead of 180! Oh, don’t forget the added healing bonus to our staff water #1!

We are fixed!

well unless you can target friendly targets with it i am not that happy :/ hate how its an melee only support, it its quite weak when considering you need to stay in water to do it.

Oh, sorry I forgot to turn on the sarcasm font.

In other words, brb rolling warrior.

Forz.1725:

Erebus.7568:

Forz.1725:

Whooo! 240 radius staff water #3 instead of 180! Oh, don’t forget the added healing bonus to our staff water #1!

We are fixed!

well unless you can target friendly targets with it i am not that happy :/ hate how its an melee only support, it its quite weak when considering you need to stay in water to do it.

Oh, sorry I forgot to turn on the sarcasm font.

In other words, brb rolling warrior.

xD

EDIT: Edited some blast finishers to be more balanced(was brought to my attention so took a good look at them).
all attunements now have 1 finisher only. which is diffinately not op compared to other classes weapons.
removed list from old post and posted again here:

staff changes: (these are changes to the current effect of the skills)
Aall aoe’s including auto attacks should be effected by blasting staff trait.
All #1(first skills, auto attacks) have their cast time reduced to 1/3-1/2 sec and the projectile speed *2.
.
.
Fire #1 (fireball) radius should be 150.
Fire #2 (larva front) instant dmg on apply(same as necro’s marks), doing 25% more for each consecutive tick (meaning second tick would do 25% more, third hit 50% more, 4 hit 75% more dmg).
Fire #3 (flame burst) do dmg equel to 1 auto attack in the aoe range and apply burn. Radius should be 220.
Fire #4 (burning retreat) should created a burning aoe of radius 50 for 5sec around the end point (the point you land)
Fire #5 (meteor storm) got two suggestions on this one either: both should have blast finisher
Version 1:meteors starts coming down instantly when channel starts(in the same manner as now when maximum meteors per second is falling), meteors hits in an aoe around the mouse (meaning you can consistently move the targeting area while the channel is ongoing) channel is canceled if moving and last for up to 6 seconds.
Version 2: can be casted while moving, cast time 1 second, full meteors fall at area after the cast is done and last for approximately same time as now. (a lot more boring then version 1 which would be awesomely cool but a lot easier to do)
.
.
Water #1 (water blast) be able to target friendly targets for 50% higher single target heal and small 25% lower aoe dmg.
Water #2 (ice spike) cast time 0,5 sec, delay on hit 1 sec. Blast finisher
Water #3 (geyser) targetable on friendly, will lash onto the target and have the target as its centrum for the duration. First healing tick is instant when it lands
Water #4 (frozen ground) 3 seconds chill. No other change
Water #5 (healing rain) when cast heals for 1 tick of geyser, cast time reduced to 1/2.
.
.
Lightning #1 (chain lightning) Now only hits 1 target, down from 3. does 60% more dmg. Blast finisher
Lightning #2 (lightning surge) cast time 0,5 sec. OR make it a 2 second channel that does high dmg and aoe blind each second, with first blind being instant, so 3 blind ticks and 6 dmg ticks (each 0,5sec dmg tick).
Lightning #3 (gust) aoe pushback changed to 90¤ instant of single target: OR make it a ground target spell which created a vortex that draws enemies too it within a 600 aoe radius of placement.
Lightning #4 (windborne speed) no change
Lightning #5 (static field) does the effect per time you touch the line not just on first touch.
.
.
Earth# (stoning) dmg *2 removed the blast finisher
Earth# (eruption) cast time 1/2 sec, delay on hit 1 sec. move the majority of the dmg to damage instead of bleed. So 25% of the dmg is from bleed 75% is from the dmg. stil a blast finisher
Earth# (magnetic aura) add stability to it for the duration.
Earth# (unsteady ground) Root instead of cripple
Earth# (shockwave) cast time instant. projectile speed *1,7, wide *1,2. removed the blast finisher
.
.
This is how I would like to see the staff which would make it a very valid choice of weapon to use while good players would still be able to negate all its big hits with dodge’s without rendering it completely useless by doing so.

Some good ideas. Staff just needs to be made faster across the board. It’s just so slow that you can run around randomly while fighting and avoid 90% of the damage. It needs faster damage that’s harder to dodge (or walk…) out of.

Lava Font needs to deal faster damage, Meteor Shower needs to have a faster casting time, Gust needs to be wider, Eruption needs to be way faster, etc.

Right now the only things staff is good for are easy combo fields and some CC. It’s damage is all horrible and extremely easy to avoid.

apparently conjures are more important, all we get is some increase on geyser AoE, which will totally kill the enemy!

These are all great ideas and I’m sure with Arena Net’s long standing history of taking player ideas and suggestions for skill changes I’m sure we’ll see these next patch.

more “support” for the iconic weapon of ele… just what we asked! yay!

Fortus.6175:

more “support” for the iconic weapon of ele… just what we asked! yay!

Staff is supposed to be support. It was explained that before the game even came out. I for one, am excited about some of the buffs it is getting.

Ryld.1340:

Fortus.6175:

more “support” for the iconic weapon of ele… just what we asked! yay!

Staff is supposed to be support. It was explained that before the game even came out. I for one, am excited about some of the buffs it is getting.

they said this but then one can wonder why it doesnt have more hard support?.
it got healing rain and geyseer with major CD thats about it for support(which isnt very much other classes have ALOT more tools then this), D/D aura build adds more support then staff in normal fights-.-
and dont say that the “cc” aspect of the staff is the stupport becouse then the WAR is supposedly pure support with the amount of hard cc it got….

as its made right now its more like a pure aoe weapon then a support one. sadly in most cases it failts at this becouse of how easy it is to negate or walk out of the aoe before dmg is applied.
the slowness of applied dps (cst and dmg delay) is what hurts the staff and what is the real issue with it. which is what i personally would like to see fixed….

when that is said, just the notion of forcing a weapon into a specific support role after all their work toward killing the trinity is just idiotic…
they should figure out what their skizofranic minds want, trinity or no trinity and go for it -.-

these stuff are still on the table. Anet!!!!

Erebus.7568:

they said this but then one can wonder why it doesnt have more hard support?.
it got healing rain and geyseer with major CD thats about it for support(which isnt very much other classes have ALOT more tools then this), D/D aura build adds more support then staff in normal fights-.-

Staff has more support, you’re just not seeing it. First of all, you forgot Windborne Speed as a ‘support’ skill. But the real trick lies in the combo fields. You can get a lot of offensive support through your Fire and Static Field combos. Frozen Ground with combos can cause perma-chill through just 1 cast (even on bosses, if used correctly) and if you blast finisher in it, everyone in the field gets Frost Aura (10% damage reduction). And then there’s Stoning, which allows the staff ele to perma weaken something if it’s needed.

Support doesn’t just mean healing and defense. It can also mean giving extra offensive power to your teammates.

All staff needs that less delayed skill and more reliable skills, the damage is kinda OK atm.

Erebus.7568:

zoran.4826:

The reduction on fire spells makes a near constant fire field that does equal damage and hits at same moment as fire auto attack. 5700 each for 11400 dps plus burning at 25 stacks of might. Pair with a LH ele every 3rd swing is blast finnisher and blind. LH ele if speced will easily maintain 25 stacks of might and minutes of fury with just auto hammer

-.- this is an extremely unrealistic combat scenario on pvp or even pve, the dmg numbers as well is out of wack compared to any “effective” staff build (you hit for around 3k in orr on a crit, if you are maxed out dps wise you can push that to 3,7+- for a 100% hp mob) this gives you 6- 7,4k dmg at BEST kittening far from your 11k even in pve(orr testing) -.- ,
even worse for pvp especially you get NO WHERE near 11k, not even near 6k dmg in an auto attack and 1 tick of lava font(assumes this is the spell you mean) even if both crits the target and you are in zerk gear+full dps…
you should play a staff ele in pvp for just 20 fights or so, same in dungeon runs, then do the same with a necro or worriar cookie cutter build and then come back and try to defend the staffs effectiveness.

pve wise if the situation is set up correctly and you got other people to take the beating. the staff is ON PAR with other classes weapons but your survive is rediculessly low though and pure support is a complete wasted since other classes outshine you by far both dps and support wise there :/

it needs alot of help and the main issue with the staff(from the dps pov) is the cast time delay to hit time :/ these makes the dps extremely low if not set up perfectly where you can keep the mob in the aoe’s for the full duration without them beating the kitten out of you :P
ofc the survivability is always terrible in dps mode and the dps could easily get the increase the lower cst and delay would add to it without making it imba due to the extreme low survive

i agree – these numbers are pretty much correct. ele staff dps is very low, even with gear/ traits that aim to max out that dmg. these numbers are much worse if you actualy go for bunker build and heal/survival gear.

Fortus.6175:

Fire #2 was more like necros mark where the first tick is instant, perhaps hits harder than the rest.

While I think the idea of revamping Lava Font isn’t a bad idea, I was wondering how you would balance the change with the trait “Lava Tomb”. The Lava Font from this trait is a very powerfull survival tool, it deals 33% extra damage when you are downed and last twice as long compared to the staff version and it can also be upgraded to last longer with “Persisting Flames” or get a larger radius with “Blasting Staff”.

So if you increase the initial damage pulse and only leave a short firefield, how does it affect Lava Tomb overall?

I love staff ele, and I love interesting buffs, but the only buff staff needs is in ability to actually hit evasive targets (players)

GoEP needs to be on a PPM regime so i can use it as staff.

If the golems were like guardian weapons, in which you get to activate their skill on command i think it would finally give us something that resembles an elite, right now i would pay to convert that elite slot into an utility slot all the time, it is that bad….

It is true that Anet primarily balances around sPvP but I doubt they would do anything as drastic as buffing Lava Font, which is basically already pretty much the best single skill in the game, DPS-wise. It is basically HB on instant cast.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

It is true that Anet primarily balances around sPvP but I doubt they would do anything as drastic as buffing Lava Font, which is basically already pretty much the best single skill in the game, DPS-wise. It is basically HB on instant cast.

DPS wise? O_o, dude, each thing does about the same as an autoattack……, actually, less than some 2h handed autoattacks like guards and warrs GS…. and both guard and warrior can auto attack faster than once every one sec, 1/2 actually, so basically each lava font tick DPS is less than half a warrior or guardian autoattacking…. you call that the best DPS in the game?!

lava font is godly dps because you channel it for half a second and then it keeps doing damage for you for 4-5 seconds. meaning you’re free to dps with your other skills while lava font adds a really good chunk of free dps. few skills have such a high damage to time opportunity cost ratio

There’s also no class in the game that can auto-attack at a rate of once every half second. Even Ranger shortbow is slower than that. The closest thing would be counting individual ticks on the mesmer’s GS auto and that doesn’t do anything remotely close to the damage from Lava Font. A single Lava Font can tick as much as 4k unbuffed, five times, for a .25s cast on a 4.8s CD. That is, again, basically HB except nearly instant cast and with half the cooldown. Meanwhile you are still auto-attacking with your own auto-attack for about 4k per attack as well.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

There’s also no class in the game that can auto-attack at a rate of once every half second.

if you count the two hits of Double Strike as two attacks, thief’s dagger chain is 4 attacks in 2 seconds !

Thief dagger autoattack doesn’t cleave and a warrior can’t cast his 100blade safely down on 5 people at a 1200 range.

But yeah, I’m sure nothing outdps 100blade. No matter how you try to make staff look good. Well I think a power/crit dmg necro can with his wells but that is another story.

no SINGLE skill will outdps 100B against a small target
but 100B is also a skill that has a 3.6 second channel. you can easily use a combination of skills during that 3.6 seconds that puts out more damage

In terms of PvE damage, without might/vulnerability you can do 3 Lightning Whips (1.14 second each) for 12k damage within the time it takes to channel 100b (3.6 second) for 14k damage. With Lighting Hammer a chain does 4k-4k-7k =15k in 2.82 seconds (third hit also aoe blind + blast finisher). One lava font does 12k? with a cast time of 0.4 second and you can chuck fireballs while it’s ticking.

Warrior damage is only on par due to the axe auto-attacks in between the 100b but no-one tops the FGS 4 against wall/with lightning flash exploit is 300k.

The game has been out for a year and people are still clueless about ele damage in pve even after much preaching. Sigh.