Guild Wars 2

Hey guys, I really enjoy playing on my staff ele (been playing on it since beta), and I’d like to have a topic that compiles all the tips and tricks that they can do. I know they’re not as popular as the D/D ele, and the staff skills could use a bit of a damage buff, but they’re still viable, especially while being support.

So post your builds, combos, strategies, etc. about the staff ele here.

To start off, here are some basic tips for beginners:

-Make use of your range. Nearly all of the staff skills have a 1200 range (The exceptions being burning retreat, magnetic aura, and windborne speed) and this is extremely useful for keeping enemies off the tops of keeps and laying down a bunch of combo fields for your group while staying out of trouble for the most part.

-Try to stay in a group in PvP situations. Staff elementalists generally don’t do as well in 1v1 scenarios because of the lack of single target damaging skills, but if you’re in a group you provide give might to your party (increasing overall damage), party-wide healing (in a huge area, especially with the Arcana VIII trait), area wide swiftness (when you’re running to the next place to capture and want to get there faster), area frost armor, regeneration, and the list goes on and on.

-Know your combo fields and what effects they give. As a staff elementalist, you’re able to lay down 4 different types of combo fields: Fire, Ice, Water, and Lightning, so knowing the effects of the finishers for each field is essential to playing a staff ele.

Here’s the build I’m using right now:
http://www.gw2builds.org/create/bwe_1/elementalist#0.0-2.12.4.16.1-0.10.0.20.20-4.4.5.6.5

Instead of the Icy Mist I’m using Arcane Abatement, it’s just that the builder hasn’t been updated for the patch yet.

Right now my ele is lvl 63, and I’m trying to get him to lvl 80 as soon as possible.

So there you go, please post your builds, strategies and tips so we can encourage other eles to try something else besides D/D, and to show that D/D ele isn’t the only build that works on eles.

EDIT: Took out Blasting Staff Tip

Reserved for list of staff ele tips

My personal tip would be to give Glyph of Elemental Power a try. There’s some useful tricks you can pull off with it. For example, if you cast it in earth, and then switch to fire, you can actually get a crippling meteor shower. Use it with water, and it’s good for 1v1 duels. Those two effects by themselves are pretty valuable to a staff ele.

I done some videos of me playing staff, works quite well. Im runing a 10/30/0/10/20 build and I´m almost always top player in the sPvP. Usually I also get the most kills, most point caped/defende and so on.

link to youtube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwiZ15PBG3f4yal-B1VPJoA

and to those who say this build/playstyle dosent work,,, well it does for me :P

In short, I disagree with most of the OP’s points, and the build posted is short 20 points. If its posted short of trait points because your just level 63, well, not sure why your coming on these forums and telling veteran Ele’s about how to play Staff…..

In fact, the only thing I do think is correct is the emphasis on Combo Fields. The Staff Ele that is not using Combo Fields should reroll to another class.

boozer.7815:

In short, I disagree with most of the OP’s points

Care to elaborate?

-Boozer: The build is short 20 points because my ele isn’t lvl 80 yet, so I’m showing what I have right now, and not some build that I’m not able to test out. I do realize that I’m not the best ele player, but as I said in my first post, this topic is here so people can post their own tips for staff based elementalists and have them all in one place, kind of like daphoenix’s guide for D/D. I’m not trying to tell the veterans how to play (sorry if I came off that way), I just want to start up a guide which can help people (like me), play better as an elementalist.

I’d also like to know why you disagree with my tips as well ‘cause if they’re not good pieces of advice then I’d like to take them off my post.

Quote:
-Get the Arcana Trait VIII (8) Blasting Staff. The increase in area radius is too good to pass up, since it affects a majority of your skills.

Majority? No. It affects 7 of your 20 staff skills, Meteor Storm NOT being one of them. Is nice to have to increase Lava Font, Frozen Ground, Static Field, and Eruption though.

JuniorSB.7089:

I’d like to have a topic that compiles all the tips and tricks that they can do.

So post your builds, combos, strategies, etc. about the staff ele here.

Sorry. Not sure how I missed that part. Probably because that part about Blasting Staff drew my attention right away..

The key to playing Staff effectively depends on what your trying to accomplish with it. If your looking to build for group support in terms of your ability to enhance what they (and you) can do for dps and survivability, then there are a few paths to that. There are some who say that you must have 30 in Water to be effective at anything in Staff, to which I would say is complete hogwash. Its all in your personal playstyle preference and how that synergizes with your teams level of competence.

What I mean by all that is that if your running with an organized clan all of which are on some form of voice comms, then you will spec/build for the teams preferences and what they need you to be doing. That could be healing/combo field support. It could be maximum AoE dps support. It could be any one or more of a hundred different things..

If your mainly running with the unorganized zerg, then you will build differently to be sure.

If your mainly just zerg surfing or running solo, then you will again build in a completely different way.

In terms of traits though, blasting staff is not all what its cracked up to be. Waste of a trait slot in most use cases. It is very useful for a Combo Field support oriented organized team though.

Ok, I took out the Blasting staff tip. Could you guys post some builds for different types of staff ele (Support, Glass Cannon, etc.)?

Sure.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/

Play around with that tool for a bit. One build I have been toying with lately is this one:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQFAWhImkbxxygjDAhHKQQCiHW4QElCzA;T4AA2yoEQJhSFlCKKcMBJCy2lDHZXDROiA

Very cannon, with the punch to back it up. Nearly perma 25 stacks of Might if you work it right. Your AoE dps on that spec will be both eye popping and you have some survivability built in to boot. Key to glass cannon staff for zerg serfing is to work the fringes and not become a target. That build will work for running with the unorganized zerg as well since nobody really expects anything from anyone anyway.. Its just a mass of toons running together like Lemmings. Just try not to be the lead Lemming and its all good.

Sweet, that helps out a lot.

Bumping this thread. How about some people show what utilities they like to use and why? For me I generally like to use a stun breaker, Arcane Blast, and Glyph of Storms. Arcane Blast is handy seeing as it’s a combo finisher, and Glyph of storms is really handy, especially while in earth attunement because of the blindness.

JuniorSB.7089:

Ok, I took out the Blasting staff tip.

It doesn’t need to be removed entirely, but maybe you can reword it a bit so it’s less of a must-have and more of a these-are-the-reasons-to-bring-it.

Because in all honesty, it’s a decent trait. It’s not strictly neccesary, true, but if you don’t know what you’re up against, or new to the staff ele, then it can help you aim.

I’m always confused why staff casters don’t seem to recommend Zephyr’s Focus from the Air tree. Don’t a lot of the staff abilities have channels? Is it because the skill is bugged or is it because it’s easier to just get vigor from other skils?

you’d be surprised how much condition staff ele can dish out. i have nicely specced for condition, and survivability, though i am a little vulnerable to conditions(cause of my low health pool) otherwise, i have yet to lose to a warrior, and only lost once to a theif(he was very very good, and got really really lucky)

EDIT: 1v1 spvp wise, since those are the majority and the ones i remember clearest(been doing a lot of WvW lately, in which i have been doing real well with also with the same build)

KirinDave.6451:

I’m always confused why staff casters don’t seem to recommend Zephyr’s Focus from the Air tree. Don’t a lot of the staff abilities have channels? Is it because the skill is bugged or is it because it’s easier to just get vigor from other skils?

I double checked, and according to the wiki, only the dagger and scepter have channeled skills. But assuming Meteor Shower falls under it too, I still feel it’s not that great. You need your endurance when you’re under attack kiting stuff, not when you’re safe enough to stand still and cast stuff. But I suppose that it would go well with Ether Renewal.

Atomic Sharks.7250:

you’d be surprised how much condition staff ele can dish out.

Sounds interesting. Personally, I’ve always felt that Eruption was to easily dodged, and burning was more often applied through Lava Font by my teammates (using their condition damage instead). What kind of build do you run otherwise?

Hey if any of you have videos of you playing staff ele, feel free to post them here. I’ve never done videos on games, but I think I might try to and see if I can get any good videos.