Guild Wars 2

is it only me that think the staff cast time should be removed/reduced?.
i really dont think its abilities are strong enough to have the cast time, self roots, that it got right now. i think it would still be fine and not op if the cast time was completely removed on it.

It needs reduced and the damage increased, its pathetically weak.

cheshirefox.7026:

you should be able to add an offhand talisman to your staff
offensive or defensive

well i like that it’s t.wo handed and the skillsets is ok,

my issue with it is that everything you do takes WAY too long to cast :/ putting a combo down takes upwards to 5 seconds before the actual dmg starts landing and the dmg is incredibly weak for how much cast time there is too it, increasing the dmg to balance it out that way would in some instances make the dmg way op,

so removing the casttime seems like the most reasonable thing to do and the most balanced, this would actually make it “usefull” in pvp as well, since the casttime is what makes it incredibly weak in most situations.

cheshirefox.7026:

i’ve logged in 2500+ hours of staff elem and my issue with it is
we have high damage output if you sink into it and unlike other professions they’ve g i m p e d our escape mechanics, we also have pitiful armor and when you sink into that there are still professions that are just facerolling us down

the hilarious part about it is the architecture of the profession wasn’t underwhelming once upon a time, they’ve simply gutted it without any sizable compensation
they’ve already tweaked staff casting in the june 25th patch
they are Completely reluctant to fix the critical issues hindering elementalist

so my suggestion is a bandage to fix an injury, as apposed to the astounding Nothing ArenaNet continually chooses to provide

playing staff ele since release(though had a break), i havent felt any hard nerfs to the staff. actually i think it have become alot better, but still becouse its so extremely easy to dodge, locks you in place while casting and having so long cast times its performance, especially pvp wise is not very good.

i think that buffing the ele generally would very fast overpower the close range combat of the ele since the buff needed to make up for the handicaps the staff have (mentioned above) is soo much more then the minor buff/tweaks neeeded to fix the other weapon combo’s/ the ele in general

Erebus.7568:

cheshirefox.7026:

i’ve logged in 2500+ hours of staff elem and my issue with it is
we have high damage output if you sink into it and unlike other professions they’ve g i m p e d our escape mechanics, we also have pitiful armor and when you sink into that there are still professions that are just facerolling us down

the hilarious part about it is the architecture of the profession wasn’t underwhelming once upon a time, they’ve simply gutted it without any sizable compensation
they’ve already tweaked staff casting in the june 25th patch
they are Completely reluctant to fix the critical issues hindering elementalist

so my suggestion is a bandage to fix an injury, as apposed to the astounding Nothing ArenaNet continually chooses to provide

playing staff ele since release(though had a break), i havent felt any hard nerfs to the staff. actually i think it have become alot better, but still becouse its so extremely easy to dodge, locks you in place while casting and having so long cast times its performance, especially pvp wise is not very good.

i think that buffing the ele generally would very fast overpower the close range combat of the ele since the buff needed to make up for the handicaps the staff have (mentioned above) is soo much more then the minor buff/tweaks neeeded to fix the other weapon combo’s/ the ele in general

The survivability of Staff was reduced with nerfs to some of the essential healing that it does. Also, while you might not have felt any nerfs, you have to keep in mind that buffs to every other class is an indirect nerf. Necro’s and Rangers weren’t usually a problem before, but they’re much worse now without anything extra to Staff’s arsenal. In fact, with the removal of stunbreak from LF and CF, you lose out on even more survivability.

Ryld.1340:

Erebus.7568:

cheshirefox.7026:

i’ve logged in 2500+ hours of staff elem and my issue with it is
we have high damage output if you sink into it and unlike other professions they’ve g i m p e d our escape mechanics, we also have pitiful armor and when you sink into that there are still professions that are just facerolling us down

the hilarious part about it is the architecture of the profession wasn’t underwhelming once upon a time, they’ve simply gutted it without any sizable compensation
they’ve already tweaked staff casting in the june 25th patch
they are Completely reluctant to fix the critical issues hindering elementalist

so my suggestion is a bandage to fix an injury, as apposed to the astounding Nothing ArenaNet continually chooses to provide

playing staff ele since release(though had a break), i havent felt any hard nerfs to the staff. actually i think it have become alot better, but still becouse its so extremely easy to dodge, locks you in place while casting and having so long cast times its performance, especially pvp wise is not very good.

i think that buffing the ele generally would very fast overpower the close range combat of the ele since the buff needed to make up for the handicaps the staff have (mentioned above) is soo much more then the minor buff/tweaks neeeded to fix the other weapon combo’s/ the ele in general

The survivability of Staff was reduced with nerfs to some of the essential healing that it does. Also, while you might not have felt any nerfs, you have to keep in mind that buffs to every other class is an indirect nerf. Necro’s and Rangers weren’t usually a problem before, but they’re much worse now without anything extra to Staff’s arsenal. In fact, with the removal of stunbreak from LF and CF, you lose out on even more survivability.

while that may be true, still just buffing the ele in overall stats would not balance out the different weapon sets since their issue are not the same over the board.
even if you buffed the staff ele’s survivability alot you wouldnt fix the issue’s of how extremely easy it is to completely negate all dps from the staff ele og how easy it is to lay a hailstorm of hurt on them, which both are there becouse of long cast time and rooting while casting.
the staff ele’s primary dmg is easily 100% evaded leaving only the lower part of its dps to be able to hit with reasonable chance.

so i dont feel like simply buffing its survivability would solve the problem the staff ele face.
i personally dont feel like its survive would need too much buffing if all the skills was instant cast, since then you would be able to actually land good combo’s on players which could bring the dps up by alot (properly not enough though, dps is kinda low even so)

Erebus.7568:

Ryld.1340:

Erebus.7568:

cheshirefox.7026:

i’ve logged in 2500+ hours of staff elem and my issue with it is
we have high damage output if you sink into it and unlike other professions they’ve g i m p e d our escape mechanics, we also have pitiful armor and when you sink into that there are still professions that are just facerolling us down

the hilarious part about it is the architecture of the profession wasn’t underwhelming once upon a time, they’ve simply gutted it without any sizable compensation
they’ve already tweaked staff casting in the june 25th patch
they are Completely reluctant to fix the critical issues hindering elementalist

so my suggestion is a bandage to fix an injury, as apposed to the astounding Nothing ArenaNet continually chooses to provide

playing staff ele since release(though had a break), i havent felt any hard nerfs to the staff. actually i think it have become alot better, but still becouse its so extremely easy to dodge, locks you in place while casting and having so long cast times its performance, especially pvp wise is not very good.

i think that buffing the ele generally would very fast overpower the close range combat of the ele since the buff needed to make up for the handicaps the staff have (mentioned above) is soo much more then the minor buff/tweaks neeeded to fix the other weapon combo’s/ the ele in general

The survivability of Staff was reduced with nerfs to some of the essential healing that it does. Also, while you might not have felt any nerfs, you have to keep in mind that buffs to every other class is an indirect nerf. Necro’s and Rangers weren’t usually a problem before, but they’re much worse now without anything extra to Staff’s arsenal. In fact, with the removal of stunbreak from LF and CF, you lose out on even more survivability.

while that may be true, still just buffing the ele in overall stats would not balance out the different weapon sets since their issue are not the same over the board.
even if you buffed the staff ele’s survivability alot you wouldnt fix the issue’s of how extremely easy it is to completely negate all dps from the staff ele og how easy it is to lay a hailstorm of hurt on them, which both are there becouse of long cast time and rooting while casting.
the staff ele’s primary dmg is easily 100% evaded leaving only the lower part of its dps to be able to hit with reasonable chance.

so i dont feel like simply buffing its survivability would solve the problem the staff ele face.
i personally dont feel like its survive would need too much buffing if all the skills was instant cast, since then you would be able to actually land good combo’s on players which could bring the dps up by alot (properly not enough though, dps is kinda low even so)

I wasn’t saying thakittens surviability needed a buff, it’s the best off of the others. It could use a lot of work though, as you said. Making most everything instant cast would be a GREAT help. I don’t get why Necro gets instant hit marks that you never see the circle for before they go off under your feet while there’s a good FOUR seconds to move out of Ice Spike and Eruption which is sadly some of the highest damage for Staff. If things were instant, life would be a lot better.

Things that would be great:
If Gust was a line targeted attack that rooted you for a half second before knocking down everything in a straight path. The closest thing I can think of to this would be something like Lux’s laser from League of Legends. Same thing for Shockwave. If the Elementalist slammed their staff in the ground with a small animation delay for example, causing cracks in a line instantly that immobilzed everyone. People would have more reaction time to those then to Marks.

As I’m leveling my Elementalist, I do notice how very slow and low cooldown the staff is.

Honestly the way i see things, (in my viewpoint), Arena.Net replaced Ele. staff short cooldown for daggers. In Guild Wars 1, many of us know how Awesome Staff Ele was; until they completely Nerfed it to the ground, due to outcry by their short cooldwons and Powerful Aoe’s. Than Later their Nerfs were later reversed..

My point is, I don’t know how in the World Elementalist from Gw1 went from staff/sceptor to daggers?

In other words.. because of those Radical Changes, Ele. Stakitten are Punished; with long cooldown.

And i think that’s not fair at all.

Why Force daggers on Elementalist instead of staff?

(WvW post)IMO it’s the animation times. They’re just painfully slow. You can strafe out of all auto-attacks(except the air one because it locks on and follows the target). All of the 2 abilities are too slow to hit(again – except the air one which actually needs an cast time reduction). Meteor shower is kinda useless vs anything <10 since it will hit extremely rarely. Air 3 is baaaaaad! Needs to lock on and follow its target! And the earth abilities are just bad in almost every possible way. Only magnetic aura is not extremely situational. I use unsteady ground mainly on already downed enemies.

well the AutoCast is screwed so, yea this its got a lot of down side, but what can you do these devs dont really test their updates

Erebus.7568:

is it only me that think the staff cast time should be removed/reduced?.

i really dont think its abilities are strong enough to have the cast time, self roots, that it got right now. i think it would still be fine and not op if the cast time was completely removed on it.

Well, yes, in a way, it IS you.

The very thing you mentioned was adressed in a recent patch, making Healing Rain able to cast while moving and reducing the cast time on a few skills including Gust, Shockwave and Meteor Shower. In essence, the only ele skills that the ele has to stand still to cast are Meteor Shower, Churning Earth and Fiery Greatsword. Apart from the greatsword (which should be cast on move imho), those abilities would be overpowered if they were castable while moving or instant cast.

As for the whole “you can’t hit stuff with staff” discussion, ever considered snaring your opponents first? Because the ele is rather good at that. Besides the weapon skills, 3 out of 4 elite elementals have some form of snaring, you can rig arcane skills to snare, there’s a glyph that gives you a chance to snare on each hit, a signet, traits, etc.

ThiBash.5634:

Erebus.7568:

is it only me that think the staff cast time should be removed/reduced?.

i really dont think its abilities are strong enough to have the cast time, self roots, that it got right now. i think it would still be fine and not op if the cast time was completely removed on it.

Well, yes, in a way, it IS you.

The very thing you mentioned was adressed in a recent patch, making Healing Rain able to cast while moving and reducing the cast time on a few skills including Gust, Shockwave and Meteor Shower. In essence, the only ele skills that the ele has to stand still to cast are Meteor Shower, Churning Earth and Fiery Greatsword. Apart from the greatsword (which should be cast on move imho), those abilities would be overpowered if they were castable while moving or instant cast.

As for the whole “you can’t hit stuff with staff” discussion, ever considered snaring your opponents first? Because the ele is rather good at that. Besides the weapon skills, 3 out of 4 elite elementals have some form of snaring, you can rig arcane skills to snare, there’s a glyph that gives you a chance to snare on each hit, a signet, traits, etc.

Staff Itself doesn’t have enough snaring to make up for the fact that EVERY SINGLE ATTACK it has (besides autoattacks) is incredibly easy to dodge or misses on its own. In an actual fight, your two main ways of trying to hit someone is Static Field and Shockwave (which misses a lot). Chill still allows for full dodge and you can almost walk out of any other AoE that Staff does. Most of the damage comes from Eruption, Lava Font, and Ice Spike. Trying hitting any kind of compentent player with those for good damage and you’ll see the problem.

Ryld.1340:

ThiBash.5634:

Erebus.7568:

is it only me that think the staff cast time should be removed/reduced?.

i really dont think its abilities are strong enough to have the cast time, self roots, that it got right now. i think it would still be fine and not op if the cast time was completely removed on it.

Well, yes, in a way, it IS you.

The very thing you mentioned was adressed in a recent patch, making Healing Rain able to cast while moving and reducing the cast time on a few skills including Gust, Shockwave and Meteor Shower. In essence, the only ele skills that the ele has to stand still to cast are Meteor Shower, Churning Earth and Fiery Greatsword. Apart from the greatsword (which should be cast on move imho), those abilities would be overpowered if they were castable while moving or instant cast.

As for the whole “you can’t hit stuff with staff” discussion, ever considered snaring your opponents first? Because the ele is rather good at that. Besides the weapon skills, 3 out of 4 elite elementals have some form of snaring, you can rig arcane skills to snare, there’s a glyph that gives you a chance to snare on each hit, a signet, traits, etc.

Staff Itself doesn’t have enough snaring to make up for the fact that EVERY SINGLE ATTACK it has (besides autoattacks) is incredibly easy to dodge or misses on its own. In an actual fight, your two main ways of trying to hit someone is Static Field and Shockwave (which misses a lot). Chill still allows for full dodge and you can almost walk out of any other AoE that Staff does. Most of the damage comes from Eruption, Lava Font, and Ice Spike. Trying hitting any kind of compentent player with those for good damage and you’ll see the problem.

as ryld say’s. its impossible to hit any of these on a half competent player, you dont have a single root which would ever hit. you can have 1 utility skill which can root (if he kittens up and doesnt dodge it) now you have 4 seconds to lay a burst and reroot for it to do dmg.
now shockwave takes a nice 2-3 seconds to land from you press it, depending on range to target(with attunement switch) that gives you 1-2 seconds of skill casting, if you are REALLY happy and its the perfect situation you get to lay icespike and eruption (best case scenario) with which he simply needs to just use 1 condision remover of 1 condision and his homefree.. meteor storm you can forget, its not even done with the cast/animation time in time for you to reroot the target, and even if he should be so noobish to get hit by 1 hit the dmg is so pethetic it really doesnt matter much..

as stated for staff to be valid the cast times need extreme decreasing/removal, dmg properly a slight buff(since you can mostly dodge out of all skills with ease), and meteor casteble while moving(but when its instant cast it doesnt matter too much, this will simply be to prevent the bugged nature of selfroot skill use while moving).

Various elements within the staff’s skill set need different QoL adjustments before they can even think of adding damage. For instance, changing Meteor Shower so that it casts similarly to Healing Rain.

Ryld.1340:

Staff Itself doesn’t have enough snaring to make up for the fact that EVERY SINGLE ATTACK it has (besides autoattacks) is incredibly easy to dodge or misses on its own. In an actual fight, your two main ways of trying to hit someone is Static Field and Shockwave (which misses a lot).

You’re half right. Yes, the staff doesn’t have quite enough snares of its own (although 4 is actually pretty much) BUT…that’s where utility skills and traits come into play. A short list:

Utility:
Glyph of Elemental Power (earth cripple or water chill)
Glyph of (Lesser) Elemental (earth cripple, water chill and elite air)
Signet of Earth
Glyph of Storms (water)

Traits:
Elemental Surge
Earthen Blast
Evasive Arcane (earth dodge)
Soothing Wave

As you can see it’s not quite so bad as you make it out to be, and while neither the weapon nor the utilities nor the traits have enough snaring on their own, when combined they have more than enough to really slow an opponent to a crawl. Also, bear in mind that the Ice Elemental’s ice field is also a combo field, so you can make use of that too.

Dodging by the way, works against ANY attack and thus is not a valid reason to claim the staff is any worse than the other weapon options.

Erebus.7568:

its impossible to hit any of these on a half competent player, you dont have a single root which would ever hit. you can have 1 utility skill which can root (if he kittens up and doesnt dodge it) now you have 4 seconds to lay a burst and reroot for it to do dmg.

You can also immobilize a target through Elemental Surge. If used correctly, you can immobilize them for more than 5 seconds in a row, and the best part is that condition removal won’t work because it’s fired in seperate bursts.

ThiBash.5634:

You’re half right. Yes, the staff doesn’t have quite enough snares of its own (although 4 is actually pretty much) BUT…that’s where utility skills and traits come into play. A short list:
Utility:
Glyph of Elemental Power (earth cripple or water chill)
Glyph of (Lesser) Elemental (earth cripple, water chill and elite air)
Signet of Earth
Glyph of Storms (water)
Traits:
Elemental Surge
Earthen Blast
Evasive Arcane (earth dodge)
Soothing Wave
As you can see it’s not quite so bad as you make it out to be, and while neither the weapon nor the utilities nor the traits have enough snaring on their own, when combined they have more than enough to really slow an opponent to a crawl. Also, bear in mind that the Ice Elemental’s ice field is also a combo field, so you can make use of that too.
Dodging by the way, works against ANY attack and thus is not a valid reason to claim the staff is any worse than the other weapon options.

Dodging is a valid claim when the reaction time allowed is much greater then any other weapon’s skill set. You have a full three seconds to get out of the area of Eruption and Ice Spike. Lava Font doesn’t even deal damage immediately when you first place it down.

And let’s go through that List:
Soothing Wave: How does this help you? Do you use Ice Bow in PvP? How about Signet of Water? The closest thing you can use to this is Mist Form, but you can’t take this trait as Staff if you’re in Water because of the much better options. Also, if you’re in mist form, you’re not doing damage. Are you saying that you’re going to use Eruption then Mist Form next to them, using a 75 second cooldown ability just to chill them for the possibility you might land Ice Spike on them?
Glyph of Elemental Power: This cripples and chills, yes. But again, this doesn’t effect dodging. Also, you’re relying on a 2 second chill proc off autoattack of water (Which is NO damage what so ever) with only a 25% chance to proc. Stoning for a cripple then Eruption doesn’t work much better either.
Elemental Surge: This will not be taken over Evasive Arcana as Staff. If you’re going damage, you don’t go 30 Arcane either.
Glyph of Lesser Elemental: This is another case of a utility that is not taken nor used. Also, you’re only using it in one attunement (Water for Chill) and relying on it to use it when you need it.
Signet of Earth: Is a good signet and I wish it was better and had a stun break. This is a valid choice, but using just this and standard staff, you only have two sources of immobilize.
Glyph of Storms – Water: I’d go with this if it was more uniform in its chilling like the Earth version is. As is, it’s too unreliable to use it to help hit with.
Evasive Arcana – Earth: This has a few key problems. You have to be in range to use this on someone, and if you do, you only have 3 seconds of cripple to try and hit someone with one of your spells that is going to take 4 seconds to hit.
——————————-

And again. Relying on Chill and Cripple to deal hold a target in place (not immobilize) long enough for one of your 3-4 second AoE’s to actually hit them for a not-large-amount of damage is a bad flaw. You’re sacrificing utility slots you can’t give up as Staff and listing trait points that you aren’t going to take just to try and land your abilities. No other class has to do this just to hit with 75% of their skills. All I’d like them to do is decrease cast time by a lot, but increase aftercast time by a good deal to basically leave us where we’re at with how much we can do, but atleast be able to actually be DOING stuff when we try to.

You can also immobilize a target through Elemental Surge. If used correctly, you can immobilize them for more than 5 seconds in a row, and the best part is that condition removal won’t work because it’s fired in seperate bursts.

And congratulations. You spent 3 of those 5 seconds just using skills to immobilize them and not actually dealing much damage. Also, yes, condition cleansing does work because they can use a cleanse (which most are instant), then evade your next immobilize, or if you do hit them, they’re not in the same spot for your AoE’s.

Staff is almost a lost cause at this point. It at least fills a role in pve (structure destruction) and WvW (zerg stunning and tagging, tower assault), but for strategic solo or small group battles I don’t think it will ever be viable. They would have to completely revamp the moveset to do that, and at that point might as well just add a new weapon.

Ryld.1340:

ThiBash.5634:

You’re half right. Yes, the staff doesn’t have quite enough snares of its own (although 4 is actually pretty much) BUT…that’s where utility skills and traits come into play. A short list:
Utility:
Glyph of Elemental Power (earth cripple or water chill)
Glyph of (Lesser) Elemental (earth cripple, water chill and elite air)
Signet of Earth
Glyph of Storms (water)
Traits:
Elemental Surge
Earthen Blast
Evasive Arcane (earth dodge)
Soothing Wave
As you can see it’s not quite so bad as you make it out to be, and while neither the weapon nor the utilities nor the traits have enough snaring on their own, when combined they have more than enough to really slow an opponent to a crawl. Also, bear in mind that the Ice Elemental’s ice field is also a combo field, so you can make use of that too.
Dodging by the way, works against ANY attack and thus is not a valid reason to claim the staff is any worse than the other weapon options.

Dodging is a valid claim when the reaction time allowed is much greater then any other weapon’s skill set. You have a full three seconds to get out of the area of Eruption and Ice Spike. Lava Font doesn’t even deal damage immediately when you first place it down.

And let’s go through that List:
Soothing Wave: How does this help you? Do you use Ice Bow in PvP? How about Signet of Water? The closest thing you can use to this is Mist Form, but you can’t take this trait as Staff if you’re in Water because of the much better options. Also, if you’re in mist form, you’re not doing damage. Are you saying that you’re going to use Eruption then Mist Form next to them, using a 75 second cooldown ability just to chill them for the possibility you might land Ice Spike on them?
Glyph of Elemental Power: This cripples and chills, yes. But again, this doesn’t effect dodging. Also, you’re relying on a 2 second chill proc off autoattack of water (Which is NO damage what so ever) with only a 25% chance to proc. Stoning for a cripple then Eruption doesn’t work much better either.
Elemental Surge: This will not be taken over Evasive Arcana as Staff. If you’re going damage, you don’t go 30 Arcane either.
Glyph of Lesser Elemental: This is another case of a utility that is not taken nor used. Also, you’re only using it in one attunement (Water for Chill) and relying on it to use it when you need it.
Signet of Earth: Is a good signet and I wish it was better and had a stun break. This is a valid choice, but using just this and standard staff, you only have two sources of immobilize.
Glyph of Storms – Water: I’d go with this if it was more uniform in its chilling like the Earth version is. As is, it’s too unreliable to use it to help hit with.
Evasive Arcana – Earth: This has a few key problems. You have to be in range to use this on someone, and if you do, you only have 3 seconds of cripple to try and hit someone with one of your spells that is going to take 4 seconds to hit.
——————————-

And again. Relying on Chill and Cripple to deal hold a target in place (not immobilize) long enough for one of your 3-4 second AoE’s to actually hit them for a not-large-amount of damage is a bad flaw. You’re sacrificing utility slots you can’t give up as Staff and listing trait points that you aren’t going to take just to try and land your abilities. No other class has to do this just to hit with 75% of their skills. All I’d like them to do is decrease cast time by a lot, but increase aftercast time by a good deal to basically leave us where we’re at with how much we can do, but atleast be able to actually be DOING stuff when we try to.

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I really, really hate Gust and Shockwave and how long they take to travel. They shouldn’t need to travel at all.

You can also immobilize a target through Elemental Surge. If used correctly, you can immobilize them for more than 5 seconds in a row, and the best part is that condition removal won’t work because it’s fired in seperate bursts.

And congratulations. You spent 3 of those 5 seconds just using skills to immobilize them and not actually dealing much damage. Also, yes, condition cleansing does work because they can use a cleanse (which most are instant), then evade your next immobilize, or if you do hit them, they’re not in the same spot for your AoE’s.

nicely answered, happy i didnt have to sit and write it :P

This is completely true

Ryld.1340:

Evasive Arcana – Earth: This has a few key problems. You have to be in range to use this on someone, and if you do, you only have 3 seconds of cripple to try and hit someone with one of your spells that is going to take 4 seconds to hit.

I find Evasive Arcane in Earth to be rather pointless, i mean it does like 50% of the damage/cripple/bleeding of the proper skill, which isnt that bad i just prefer the water and Fire ones over it

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Ryld.1340:

Evasive Arcana – Earth: This has a few key problems. You have to be in range to use this on someone, and if you do, you only have 3 seconds of cripple to try and hit someone with one of your spells that is going to take 4 seconds to hit.

I find Evasive Arcane in Earth to be rather pointless, i mean it does like 50% of the damage/cripple/bleeding of the proper skill, which isnt that bad i just prefer the water and Fire ones over it

Don’t use it for damage. It’s a blast Finishers. That’s its whole purpose.

Ryld.1340:

ArmageddonAsh.6430:

Ryld.1340:

Evasive Arcana – Earth: This has a few key problems. You have to be in range to use this on someone, and if you do, you only have 3 seconds of cripple to try and hit someone with one of your spells that is going to take 4 seconds to hit.

I find Evasive Arcane in Earth to be rather pointless, i mean it does like 50% of the damage/cripple/bleeding of the proper skill, which isnt that bad i just prefer the water and Fire ones over it

Don’t use it for damage. It’s a blast Finishers. That’s its whole purpose.

In theory the fire dodge would be good for condi builds; 5 sec of burning isn’t bad, but eles just suck at condi application so it’s not worth it in the long run.

So, any got a good staff build to share?

skullmount.1758:

So, any got a good staff build to share?

I just use the normal 0/0/10/30/30 Support Bunker. Cleric Gear and Sigil of Energy

Erebus.7568:

Ryld.1340:

And let’s go through that List:
Soothing Wave: How does this help you? Do you use Ice Bow in PvP? How about Signet of Water? The closest thing you can use to this is Mist Form, but you can’t take this trait as Staff if you’re in Water because of the much better options. Also, if you’re in mist form, you’re not doing damage. Are you saying that you’re going to use Eruption then Mist Form next to them, using a 75 second cooldown ability just to chill them for the possibility you might land Ice Spike on them?
Glyph of Elemental Power: This cripples and chills, yes. But again, this doesn’t effect dodging. Also, you’re relying on a 2 second chill proc off autoattack of water (Which is NO damage what so ever) with only a 25% chance to proc. Stoning for a cripple then Eruption doesn’t work much better either.
Elemental Surge: This will not be taken over Evasive Arcana as Staff. If you’re going damage, you don’t go 30 Arcane either.
Glyph of Lesser Elemental: This is another case of a utility that is not taken nor used. Also, you’re only using it in one attunement (Water for Chill) and relying on it to use it when you need it.
Signet of Earth: Is a good signet and I wish it was better and had a stun break. This is a valid choice, but using just this and standard staff, you only have two sources of immobilize.
Glyph of Storms – Water: I’d go with this if it was more uniform in its chilling like the Earth version is. As is, it’s too unreliable to use it to help hit with.
Evasive Arcana – Earth: This has a few key problems. You have to be in range to use this on someone, and if you do, you only have 3 seconds of cripple to try and hit someone with one of your spells that is going to take 4 seconds to hit.
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And again. Relying on Chill and Cripple to deal hold a target in place (not immobilize) long enough for one of your 3-4 second AoE’s to actually hit them for a not-large-amount of damage is a bad flaw.

nicely answered, happy i didnt have to sit and write it :P

This is completely true

You support the guy when he doesn’t even know the Glyph of Elemental Power effect is determined when it’s cast and not what attunement you’re currently in (meaning you can cripple things with Fireball, Lava Font and Meteor Shower)?

Cripple affects dodge, especially when it’s perma cripple. Glyph of Elemental Power and an Earth Elemental is all it takes for you to start hitting stuff with your staff. That’s just 1 utility and 1 elite slot, leaving you with 2 free slots.

But I’m guessing you’d know that because you’ve been testing non-cantrip staff builds for months right?