Guild Wars 2

I’ve been participating in a Long thread about the Staff, and its relative value of lack there of as a weapon; I’m hoping this thread will not be round two of that conversation.

Instead I’m opening this thread to invite players who have had good results with the Weapon to please post any tips, tricks, cycles, that you have found that work for you. Builds and Runes are also of interest; and as not everyone in GW2 is Lv 80; tips on sub 80 Play, Runes and build are also welcome, least by me.

My personal interest is PvE, but PvP tips are welcome. C.

I’ve personally never played one, but the guy in this video seems to have some nice results.

Apart from the usual (make use of combo fields, evasive arcana, etc.) I’ve found that Glyph of Elemental Power works very well with the staff. The snares and earth/water cast glyph can cause help out a lot in hitting your targets, both in 1 vs 1 and targetting larger groups (since the glyph’s cooldown is per target, not as a whole).

I’ve never tried to use the staff in PvP but I’ve used it nearly from 1-79 in PvE and loved it the most of all the weapon combos (though I do intend to try out all the other weapon types once I hit 80 and see what I like best now I’m used to the class).
I’ve always been a fan of huge fire power and glass cannons, so I put most my skills into fire first and arcane second and usually use fire for most easy mobs. Fire works great for AOE which often happens with solo PvE since so long as you can avoid getting hit they take all enemies down very quickly.

When taking down a boss, I will often switch between all the attunements; I’ll start in earth and pop off an eruption, then switch to fire with a lava font to use that combo for extra damage, then use all the fire skills (depending on where the mobs are of course, use flame burst only when there are mobs close to each other, and same with meteor shower), then switch back to earth and do the same. I always use magnetic aura when getting hit by archers but since it’s cooldown is fairly long and it doesn’t last very long, I save it for when I’m actually being hit rather than just in case. When everything is on cool down I’ll switch to air and use the speed boost, especially if I need to get away quickly, and then water to drop both the heals.

As for the other skills, I use arcane shield (useful for needing to get a heal off while being attacked) and arcane wave (also useful to get off a quick attack either while knocked down or running from a mob), and I use hounds of balthazar for my elite but only when things look dire since it has such a long cool down.

That’s basically how I play it, but it largely depends on what I’m fighting and how much room I have to run circles around the enemy (fighting in jumping puzzles are a kitten so I tend to stick with earth and water to keep defenses up). I have to say it’s by no means perfect, I basically play by seeing what feels right to me and what I can pull off and survive a while with, I can’t do the theory crafting that some incredibly smart people on here do. But it has worked for me so far and I find the most enjoyment in the staff spells so that’s what I’ve stuck with.

And staffs are pretty and I’m all for the pretty