Guild Wars 2

I have a main who is somewhat attached to his staff. I’m still waiting for the staff to get “some love”. With the majority of “tweaks” centering around the d/d weapon set and disproportionately strong cantrips, I wonder whether Anet will ever give the little guy a break. I guess one can dream.

more like staff air attunement
fire,water,and earth all are perfectly fine in pve,spvp,and wvw
Shockwave could use an update on its ability to hit,however
but still
blinding surge and gust are just horrendous to use
chain lightning is alright,semi-homing and multi-target,easier to land than fireball against mobile targets
windborne speed and static field already have more than useful effects
windborne being able to remove chill is godly in certain situations of pvp
static field having no target limit in wvw is the best thing ever
but dem skills 2 and 3 doe….these should have been fixed WAY earlier in development of this game period….not 2+ years later that we’re still waiting for

Gust should have been a PBAoE Cone tbh, and Blinding Surge… needs to be AOE.

Make your own mini-game by going stones-deep into Air, pick-up lightning rod, go full GC with air sigil and see how many procs you can achieve before your opponent succumbs to NO INTERNAL COOLDOWN. We have so many fun ways to proc lightning rod..you know that weird conjured shield nobody uses? Tornado/whirlpool, air 5 (x2), 3…trident air 5, etc.
It’s crazy fun.

The elementalist staff skills could have a 25% increase speed and cooldown and it still would not be too strong in comparison to other classes…

You guys know that Ele Staff is the highest dps in the game right? We want to boost it? WTH

Stephen.6312:

I have a main who is somewhat attached to his staff. I’m still waiting for the staff to get “some love”. With the majority of “tweaks” centering around the d/d weapon set and disproportionately strong cantrips, I wonder whether Anet will ever give the little guy a break. I guess one can dream.

Apart from Air 2-3 and maybe Water 2, staff is perfect as is in any game mode. At least IMO.

I just want Water 2 to be a blast finisher and a lower cast time on Blinding Surge

Yeah staff definatelly needs some boosting! Top priority for Anet!

It’s not like it’s the highest dps weapon in the whole game or something….

Seriously what’s with the forums in general these days? …

I’d support buffing of air attunement on staff.

The other attunements are fine imo, but air attunement’s #2 skill in particular is really crap. It should be instant cast for the blind.

Purple Miku.7032:

I’d support buffing of air attunement on staff.

The other attunements are fine imo, but air attunement’s #2 skill in particular is really crap. It should be instant cast for the blind.

Hold on, you mean that performing a massively obvious and unique animation that takes almost 2 seconds to complete is not appropriate for a blinding skill? You are breaking Anet’s heart!

Side note for all the people who say that Staff has the highest DPS in the game: it is true (I TCed it myself!), but it is only applicable when your enemy does not move much, when you have access to the required buffs, and when you do not need to do anything else but damage. Technically, that is very niche.

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

Side note for all the people who say that Staff has the highest DPS in the game: it is true (I TCed it myself!), but it is only applicable when your enemy does not move much, when you have access to the required buffs, and when you do not need to do anything else but damage. Technically, that is very niche.

Well that’s pretty good in PvE since you can lock down enemies so they don’t move much. And its pretty good to support a node in sPvP, ppl have to take you attack, waste their defense or get out of the node. But its just not that good in solo or in pvp fight out of a node. All weapons have its purpose, we don’t want them to all have the same strength.

Thaddeus.4891:

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

Side note for all the people who say that Staff has the highest DPS in the game: it is true (I TCed it myself!), but it is only applicable when your enemy does not move much, when you have access to the required buffs, and when you do not need to do anything else but damage. Technically, that is very niche.

Well that’s pretty good in PvE since you can lock down enemies so they don’t move much. And its pretty good to support a node in sPvP, ppl have to take you attack, waste their defense or get out of the node. But its just not that good in solo or in pvp fight out of a node. All weapons have its purpose, we don’t want them to all have the same strength.

^^
Ele’s weapons are pretty solid, each option has it’s uses.

The thing is: buffing the air attunement will change nothing to staff’s strength in PvE. This means that we are discussing balance from a pvp perspective here, therefore DPS is not an applicable concept. That being said I agree with you Thaddeus: to each weapon its characteristics.

However, if we put balance aside for a second and just look at the usability of skills, staff air 1 2 3 are just wrong. Maybe 3 could be considered fine somehow. But 1 and 2 are bad, in terms of usability. If we could have them be more easily useful and balance them to compensate, we would all be happy.

I’ve never had a problem in air 1 for PVE, it’s my favorite attune. for AA. But I get what you are saying…it’s really geared for trash mobs in groups.

I’m actually quite happy with the way staff plays. The only change I would make is make lava font a 2 second field and give it an initial dmg tick and maybe add 1 second to the cool down.

Upside to this is on fights where your enemy is static “and there are a lot” This would lower staffs Dps and team might stacking ability. On fights with moving targets the damge tick on cast would probably up your dps a bit.

My one concern is in PvP. This would give you 2 seconds less area control with lava font. In Pvp giving some classes 2 seconds more melee uptime on you is a death sentence.

I would be very happy that they tweak Air 2 on staff. Either shorter cast time or increased damage is fine. It’s my favorite sneaky nuke on power range classes in PvP.

isn’t air 2 a high damage single target skill?

pepper.6179:

isn’t air 2 a high damage single target skill?

It’s not high damage. If you consider its cast time then it’s actually low DPS. Its effect is almost useless because of this cast time. The cooldown is relatively long. Its targeting mechanic is primitive. And the AoE is irrelevant.

Next?

Ice spike and lightning surge need shorter cast time. Ice spike also needs shorter after cast.

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

pepper.6179:

isn’t air 2 a high damage single target skill?

It’s not high damage. If you consider its cast time then it’s actually low DPS. Its effect is almost useless because of this cast time. The cooldown is relatively long. Its targeting mechanic is primitive. And the AoE is irrelevant.

Next?

Yeah, the AoE is pretty small. If it had an AoE of some significance, I could maybe see the long cast time being warranted. I’d even be fine if they lowered the damage a bit to significantly shorten the cast time, since applying a clutch blind with it could be quite useful. Even if they just lower it to 1 second instead of 1.5, it would be a lot better.

Often times, I try to use this as a pre-engage. The cast time is partially consumed while I get in range of the opponent, so that it hits them at more-or-less the maximum distance possible while I’m still moving forward. Kind of crappy to have to use it that way though.

xDudisx.5914:

Ice spike and lightning surge need shorter cast time. Ice spike also needs shorter after cast.

The only issue I’d have with ice spike on a shorter cast time is that it can hit a bit hard, and water attunement is not supposed to be damage-centric. And yes, that’s the only actual ability in water attunement that does real damage, but it’s sort of in the same vein as dragon’s tooth. Dragon’s tooth has a wind up because it hits so hard, so in order to get it to land properly you need to use it as some kind of skill combo instead of just randomly throwing it out at someone. Ice spike is a similar deal, and the way water attunement is designed it would seem like it’d be a good time to throw it after you catch people in frozen ground.

Why do people think that this game is 100% ballanced around PvP?

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Why do people think that this game is 100% ballanced around PvP?

Because it is 0% balanced around other game types.

Zelyhn Lekovitch.2867:

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Why do people think that this game is 100% ballanced around PvP?

Because it is 0% balanced around other game types.

nice info out of thin air!

@Zel: Lightning surge and Ice spike deals roughly the same damage for 8 stacks of might. It is about 3k with crit. It’s meh overall, but not too shabby if aimed at an unsuspected ranger, I guess. The AA is slow and meh as well, unless it bounces between two targets. In general, not saying that this skill doesn’t need a buff. But right now, it’s not a skill that we “should completely not use at all”.

Oh yes Ice spike is good in my opinion
It does over 40% more DPS than lightning surge, and honestly it has just about the same chance to hit even with its delay. Its cooldown is much lower, its AoE is bigger, and the buff it provides makes sense.
If chain lightning hits twice then it deals 45% more DPS than lightning surge.

The only use I have for lightning surge is to blind downed people from afar, if I am not in range to dodge-EA.

This is a joke thread, right? I note the lack of details in the original post about how exactly the staff is underpowered or anything.

Fire attunement is definitely OP compared to just about anything else in the PvE game. That’s for the sake of PvP balance where targets aren’t stupid enough to just stand in a fire field. The DPS needs to be relatively high to compensate. That’s an enormous boon for PvE.

In PvE the other attunements seem and I suppose are crappier. But I don’t think they are compared to just about any other weapon / profession in the game.

I get good use out of my fire staff but if anything I’d see Anet hitting staff’s fire with some kind of nerf before they buff the other attunements.

Why would they nerf fire? In order to be grabbing that high number of damage your possibly sacrificing a ton of survivability. Just wish we had more finishers then earth and 2 arcane skills and wouldnt hinder so much of what a staff ele can do.

Air is awful. Fire is Good, perhaps too good. Earth and Water are in-between but I find Water in particularly to be overly situational. It tends to sacrifice too much DPS for the utility provided (more or less the same problem with Air, but at least the support is pretty good.)

Caeledh.5437:

This is a joke thread, right?

It’s only a joke if you don’t read the reponse posts that explain the OP’s position.

Staff air has been underpowered for a long time. Anet buffed some of its skills, but much remains to be done. This is a something I have been advocating for very long.

Read the posts explaining why our complaints are well grounded, only then if you are not convinced by our arguments you may say “this is a joke”.

Caeledh.5437:

This is a joke thread, right? I note the lack of details in the original post about how exactly the staff is underpowered or anything.

Fire attunement is definitely OP compared to just about anything else in the PvE game. That’s for the sake of PvP balance where targets aren’t stupid enough to just stand in a fire field. The DPS needs to be relatively high to compensate. That’s an enormous boon for PvE.

In PvE the other attunements seem and I suppose are crappier. But I don’t think they are compared to just about any other weapon / profession in the game.

I get good use out of my fire staff but if anything I’d see Anet hitting staff’s fire with some kind of nerf before they buff the other attunements.

First, pve is not even considered for the major balance changes. Pve is just a side effect.

Second, if you are worried about eles dmg been too high with staff you should know that increase dmg in air and water wouldn’t change anything because the pve ele would still opt to stay in fire. Therefore a buff to air #2 and water #2 would’t really change the ele highest dps rotation.

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Why do people think that this game is 100% ballanced around PvP?

Because perhaps they are more observant than you… Back when the devs used to discuss balance changes on Twitch virtually everything was discussed in the context of tPvP, that bar the odd change is what they balance on, you really think they balance on PvE and have just done such a terrible job that necro has remained unwanted for 2.5 years? Or that they balance for WvW and in 2.5 years have not come up with a way to make engies on par in a zerg?

This game was designed around tPvP, which is why it is basically broken in other areas, such has condies being useless in PvE, standing still and stacking in a game based on movement in PvE or range generally being totally subpar to melee in PvE.

Yelloweyedemon.2860:

Why do people think that this game is 100% ballanced around PvP?

I don’t think anyone honestly believes that the game is 100% balanced around PvP but it’s also hard to ignore the long standing experience of players that most balance changes we’ve seen have been driven by PvP.

A classic Elementalist example of this was the Ride the Lightning nerf way long time ago where it was nerfed in PvE, WvW and SPvP because Elementalists had too much escapability. Why did it need to be nerfed in PvE? Because, as they’ve said repeatedly, they want all game modes to feel similar and they don’t want you hitting RTL every 30 seconds in PvE then switch over to PvP and now it has a 45 second cool down instead and you go to use it and it’s not up.

Agree, disagree, that’s just the way it is.

Staff Air is one of the weakest xD.

I mean, I do find use for Gust (pushing off an edge a completely static target, lol), #4 for swiftness, and of course the beautiful and amazing Static Field.

Electrical Surge is very weak. The description of Air attunement is “very high damage” but that is so not true xD. Make Electrical surge a higher cooldown yet very powerful thunder strike.

As for the autoatack, is fine in DPS, specially with 2 opponents (hits first, bounces off second, comes back to first, dealing twice as much as damage on your main target).

The auto attack is mighty fine against ranger <3 <3. Buff the Surge please…

All the aa’s could move faster (especially chain lightning, i mean seriously, since when did lightning move slower than someone can run)

Water and earth aa’s could also use some love considering theyre slow casts and single target, but not too much. Maybe up the water aa damage by 10-20% and add a 3s bleed to earth.

Lightning surge could have a little faster cast time, and itd be nice if it didnt go on full cd if its inturrupted. Itd also be neat if it could hit targets behind you, but thats unlikely

Gust could obviously be better at hitting moving targets (and shockwave), thats probably one of the most desired changes.

Ice spike could also be made a little easier to land, not sure how without making it too good, maybe lower the delay a little

Id love for the radius increase from blasting staff to be built in so we have more room to play with other traits, but thats just more wishful thinking and probably shouldnt happen anyway because itd make us imba as kitten in pvp.

Otherwise staff is in a pretty good place, just takes getting used to. Kind of boring that the way to play it in pve is sitting in fire hitting nothing but 1+2 over and over, but at least its always challenging in pvp/wvw

LOL

My staff ele is probably my most damaging character. It kills things 10x faster than my other classes and you want to buff it?

LOL please do

Jordo.5913:

LOL

My staff ele is probably my most damaging character. It kills things 10x faster than my other classes and you want to buff it?

LOL please do

Try to comprehend nuance.

To the people saying that staff is the highest damage weapon, perhaps, but that’s in a PvE setting. I think a lot of people here are discussing things that would increase the utility in some of the skills in PvP. Not saying it’s not viable in PvP, I generally exclusively use staff, but I can more than agree that some of the skills are terrible, especially in a PvP setting. Specifically, as mentioned above, Ice Spike, Lightning Surge, and Gust.

Someone suggested making Ice Spike a blast finisher, but that would allow elementalists to have access to up to five blast finishers and a water field in one build. Which… sounds like it could push healing past that of an engineers. (cast water 2, drop water 5, swap into earth, use earth 2, dodge, use arcane blast and arcane brilliance).

All Ice Spike really needs is a speed increase. It already applies 5 stacks of vulnerability. If it didn’t take like… 3 to 4 seconds to actually land, it would be a great way to maintain some damage when you swap into water to heal back up.

As for lightning surge, it’s really the same issue. If it were instant instead of a skill that takes a while to charge up, it would be great. They could even nerf the damage at that point and I’d be happy.

And gust just needs to be more reliable with connecting to it’s target Maybe if it were homing, idk… It just feels very limiting to have swapped into either of these attunements, have all of your other attunements on cooldown, and have every skill except these three semi-useless ones used up. At that point it’s sometimes better to autoattack and wait your cooldowns out.

Edit: to elaborate on what I said above, to those who don’t know, if you are in water and drop your Water 5, and then immediately swap to earth and drop earth 2, the blast finish will go off before the field disappears, thus giving another area heal).

It’s the animations and casting time that are too slow, not the actual skill recharge.
Chain lightning should animate faster, it’s way to clunky.
Surge could have 25% faster cast time and keep the same recharge
Gust rarely works, why not make it aoe targettable?
Lava Font does damage over 1-2 sec after you press the key
Fireball moves too slow for the damage it makes, or the radius is too small
Water auto-attack: lol must be a joke, skill there not working
Ice spike, 25% animation speed buff required, same cooldown
Earth-2 should follow with same buff, so that the combo isnt broken with ice spike.