Guild Wars 2

Staff is good for support, but it feels clunky and slow
Bursting with S/F is kinda bad ATM, I feel like playing that is like trying to play a kitten burst thief or mesmers. Not to mention its weak auto attack..

I’m talking about PvP BTW.

S/F sounds like it should work but in practice you just end up without enough damage or healing, not to mention the lack of mobility. The extra defense is nice, I guess, but in practice the range advantage from Focus makes the defense largely duplicitous.

I don’t know if it’s “viable” per se, but my favorite set for small-scale PvE fights is S/D. It’s a very flexible weapon set that gives you the ability to fight either at range or up close dynamically. It also bursts extremely hard, has a good amount of might stacking potential, heals pretty well too, and even has decent CC. The 2 instant-cast skills are nice too since they allow you to contribute to fights a little while rezzing someone (and a clutch blind can even be the difference between getting the rez off or not in some circumstances).

If you really want to make the Focus work, though, D/F is ok too (I know some people swear by it). The dagger autoattacks help make up for the Focus’s damage deficiency and you still have Earth 3 and Fire 3 to get around a battle, plus the extra defense is actually really helpful in melee range.

As for Staff, it should also be mentioned that Staff has, bar none, the best DPS potential of any Ele weapon set (possibly of any weapon set in the game?). S/D and D/D are better against smaller groups, but Staff can generate truly ridiculous amounts of damage against large numbers of foes.

There are none. That’s the whole problem with eles, always has been.

No other option comes close to DD ele (which is why there are going to be nerfs to it sooner or later.)

I wish they would buff other specs to be on par or at least remotely close to what DD ele is capable of doing in PvP but I don’t see it… Anet will take the easy way out by nerfing it.

It really depends on what u want to do and what area of the game u are many playing in. Though u say staff is good at support, I will say that is not entirely true, when I started going after jarmag recently I managed to get my staff dmg to 10k, and I think that I can get it higher because I do have force and bloodlust sigils on my staff, and I do main on dmg though I can’t get max dmg with staff on Jormag mainly because of the tics he put on me, been thinking about trying it on the shatterer might get max dmg

For PvP, D/F is also OK in some situations, but it will be the same build otherwise. And even then, you should just stick to D/D.

d/f

Unless you go condi heavy, the damage benefit of dagger off-hand doesn’t outweigh the defensive benefit of focus.

So we don’t have much other options besides cele D/D dowe? So people are complaining that we are OP in PvP, when we don’t really have any other options to play at this class and not suck?

Triflux.8027:

So we don’t have much other options besides cele D/D dowe? So people are complaining that we are OP in PvP, when we don’t really have any other options to play at this class and not suck?

You can play Staff Bunker and be okay(Celestial Water/Arcana/Earth and 3x Cantrips) or play D/F or S/F and be a much worse Thief/Mesmer. Other than that? Cele D/D is the best you got.

Triflux.8027:

So we don’t have much other options besides cele D/D dowe? So people are complaining that we are OP in PvP, when we don’t really have any other options to play at this class and not suck?

We have options. Just nothing remotely viable as dd cele ele

Hear that anet? Perhaps before you decide to nerf cele DD to the ground, think about making other options worth using.

I am playing D/F and is very good I beat a lot of D/D eles. Also some times play staff ele and is very good. Try a s/f burn ele but the problem with that build is that your have to stick to fire and I a very use to change attunements very often.

I like playing cele FWA staff for more support. Some people tend to have selfish builds and/or playstyle so I like to compensate for that. Although I mostly play at close range for my allies to benefit from both EA. Something like a staff bruiser though it may sound dumb.

This is just public perspective for the most part. Both Celestial D/D and Celestial Staff have the same score on Metabattle and Celestial staff gets used in top tier pvp. You just need to give up on the idea that you are going to win 1v1 fights with celestial staff, because thats not what you are therefore. You are there to bunker hard and to provide exceptional aoe team support.

I swear by Staff. I just have no interest in D/D and I have to play a match where I didnt pull my weight or had someone “dd or gtfo”.

With all the said, I think the reason it gets looked down on is, because it’s dependent on your teammates to fully utilize your abundance of combo fields. You don’t have any way to trigger them except for projectiles and blast finisher in Earth attunement. You can’t afford to trade out your cantrips for arcane blast finishers, because they are simply too important to stay alive. Once you lightning flash into a battle and aoe heal your team back up to near full health, you are going to get a big target on your head.

Not all weapon have the same efficiency being at defense or offense, so players will use wath makes them to win.
IF theres one weapon in that specific game mode that outshiness all other weapon mechanics theres no need to choose the lacklusters.

All classes have this problem not only elementalist.

don’t listen to these d/d fanboys.
go d/f carrion amulet with krait runes – geomancy/doom sigil – signet of earth.
E/W/A
go have fun with your new build and dust off your d/d hype shame.

Conjure Condition Staff is good.

When we got 3 full lines I thought finally I can properly learn to play fresh air scepter, my problem was with the fresh air if you can’t land your burst and scepter burst in my opinion one of the hardest to land in all zerker classes, the other class will out sustain and kill you.

So I thought we got the water we will not die that easily to conditions and if I miss my burst I will have a chance to try to go for another burst if I survive. Well that dream is destoyed when I figured without the healing power, water line does not do anything.

In the old system, investing water line was giving HP and healing power, now going for berserker of marauder, you get none and water line sucks.

ANet in their unbelievable urge to nerf the air line (which was no way OP) took out the trait giving some percentage of your precision as healing power away. If S/F could get some HP and healing power from traits and could use Crusader amulet, it would be awesome but I think it is a pipe dream.

11001 staff full zerk
Can outburst burst spec IF … you land gust …. not really great, you get it. Once won 1V2thief … still wondering how XD (probably thanks to silvary’s elite). Once bursted a bus guardian … same: still wondering how ^^

Get deleted by everything else in 1V1

I tried running zerk staff once. Problem is, survivability becomes a joke. With no healing power, water line barely heals for anything. And Fire #1 is actually too slow to do anything. It’s even worst than S/F.

There was a condition S/F build that involved using signets, but apparently they needed that too with the new specialisation patch.

Well in pvp, you can’t slot anything else than cele since they splitted stat and spec.
In wvw at least you can tweak your number by mixing :/

S/F is fun but there’s not enough damage. It’s just weak in general but the clunky weapon skills don’t help either.

Playing Staff always with Elemental Surge and Arcane Brilliance… Water 3 (20 Sec Cd) and AB (20 Sec Cd) is easy to combine.. always using with Earth 2 first.

2 Blasts, the Healing from AB and Water 3 + Healing Ripple (if you play something like Fire, Water, Arcane) is more than enough Healing. Thats how i play Staff. And celestial Staff with Signet of Earth does a good Job too.

But you will always hear ppl complaining about not playing cele D/D.. cause most of them just want to play the strongest Build.

Staff and Scepter are still viable.. not as strong as D/D… but useable.

Maesto.9103:

Playing Staff always with Elemental Surge and Arcane Brilliance… Water 3 (20 Sec Cd) and AB (20 Sec Cd) is easy to combine.. always using with Earth 2 first.

2 Blasts, the Healing from AB and Water 3 + Healing Ripple (if you play something like Fire, Water, Arcane) is more than enough Healing. Thats how i play Staff. And celestial Staff with Signet of Earth does a good Job too.

But you will always hear ppl complaining about not playing cele D/D.. cause most of them just want to play the strongest Build.

Staff and Scepter are still viable.. not as strong as D/D… but useable.

Scepter is far from viable, if I see Scepter against I will just focus, he will not able to do anything to me he has to run for his life all the time, if he can free cast yeah, but all zerker build can wreck you if it is allowed free cast.

Staff, it will not die but it will not able to kill anybody and it is not same level of bunker as Guardian, so what is the purpose.