I keep hearing that staff elementalist is not good for structured pvp. In my eyes the only difference between staff, scepter/focus, and dual daggers is long range, medium range, and short range. And in my opinion a player would choose a pair of weapons based on his play style. I’ll have you know if you come across me in structured pvp don’t expect to beat me. Now I’m not saying " I’m a boss" or anything. But staff gets spit on by many elementalists I see posting here. Its just not true. In spvp, wvw, staff gives you the ability to spam dps and cc crowds of players. And you still have amazing tools at your disposal in 1v1’s. Its about using the appropriate skill in the appropriate circumstance. I’ve beaten thieves, guardians and warriors with my staff in spvp. I still struggle with necromancers and mesmers but very few have straight face rolled me. And I have yet to make a “Bunker” or tank build but I’ve seen some amazing bunker elementalists in…yes! You guess it. Structured PVP!!! For all you elementalists who want to use staff because you like the long range playstyle. PLAY IT! Make it your own and people will think twice about fighting you. YES… even in structured pvp.
Agreed, I don’t understand the Staff hate. Yes, if I get cornered by a warrior and a thief, I might be in some trouble, but if I can CC and DPS a group of players while keeping a huge range from them, I obviously have the advantage. Staff is a fantastic weapon, especially with the huge range AoE’s you can get out of it, incredibly useful for a game about staying on points to cap them. How are they going to stand there and cap when I’ve set up half a dozen AoEs from a distance?
The staff is amazing in sPvP. There’s a lot of top tier teams that run with a staff ele. They are very tough to kill because they can cleanse conditions constantly and they can throw out huge aoe heals with the water 3 and 5 plus blast finishers. They do decent dmg, strong aoe. And they are perfect for killing the treb in kyhlo. The treb has a huge hit box, so the fire 5 ability just destroys it.
The biggest problem I have with staff for PvP is that is severely lacks any solid single target damage option.
It’s one of the things that I feel misses on the staff. It’s great in group situations, which is 80-90% of WvW and sPvP if you play it well. But if you’re on your own the staff has some of the lowest single target damage outputs of any weapon/class combinations.
I had kinda hoped that attunements would play more into that, like they should. Frankly I still hope they give Air attunement on the staff a bit more power, and remove some of the AoE effects that it really doesn’t require (there are alternatives for that on the staff).
The reason that this is a bad thing IMO is because:
a) We don’t have any other 1200 range weapons, the only other way to have a damage oriented playstyle is to go S/D or D/D both practically requiring melee range in most situaitons
b) We, unlike most other classes, don’t have the luxury of swapping weapons. If I were to come into a situation where weapon X is at a disadvantage on say my Ranger. I would swap to weapon Y; or at least I would have some way to circumvent that.
Attunements were suppose to be our alternative for weapon swaps, but in some of these situations they don’t live up to that.
Note: I still love the staff; I just think it has this glaring issue that slightly annoys me at times.
Ive been trying out different build as Ele in SPVP. I love the staff. Love the range on it. I dont spec for dps. I spec for condition removal, heals, signets, auras and buffs to group. Really seems to increase survivability and dps output for the entire group. Also, everyone else is always rolling a mesmer, theif, or gaurd, so its good to have the Staff ele out there healing, buffing, and mitigating damage
Pretty sure that you’re going to suffer 1v1 as a staff elementalist 100% of the time. The staff simply is not a 1v1-oriented weapon. Your best option is to give yourself some escape options so that you can regroup (we’re talking cantrips, mostly). Staff is a support weapon, and without a weapon swap, you’re going to be stuck in that for the duration of the match.
Staff has some really incredible kiting ability. Earth has an immobilize and a cripple; Air has a stun, swiftness, and lighting combo field; Fire has a backwards evade and fire combo field (combine with Earth 5 for good damage to go with your kite); and water has an ice combo field and aoe chill. Combine with Arcane skills for finishers and you can become one really slippery target.
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Staff is not as bad at 1v1 as you would think. Probably because it takes more than one person to kill a staff support ele. We have a lot of healing and utility. It usually takes focus fire from multiple enemies to burst me down.
There’s no excuse to not devote a single attunement for real single target combat, considering we cannot swap weapons and all the bullkitten about superior flexibility from attunements.
Our weapon choice severely defines our gameplay. Every weapon is good for something else.
Staff is good for support, control and AOE damage. The more targets you have on one spot the more effective staff is.
Other weapons are the other way. The less targets do you have on one spot the more effective they are. The more ppl..the less effective they are. Scepter and daggers are specialized on single target damage. Even though you are able to deal some damage to multiple targets at the same time, it will never be as effective as Staff.
Also weapon choice determines how you should build your character. With staff character can have much lower HP and toughness because the idea of staff gameplay is not to get hit and do big damage from long range. On the other hand if you go with daggers you will be on your foes toes so higher vitality and/or toughness is preferred, because you are most likely to be attacked in the middle of the combat field.
I personally love staff for PvE, WvW and tPvP, for sPvP however I prefer scepter + focus.
The staff is amazing in sPvP. There’s a lot of top tier teams that run with a staff ele. They are very tough to kill because they can cleanse conditions constantly and they can throw out huge aoe heals with the water 3 and 5 plus blast finishers. They do decent dmg, strong aoe. And they are perfect for killing the treb in kyhlo. The treb has a huge hit box, so the fire 5 ability just destroys it.
Right for the most part, but the staff has anything but “huge” aoe heals. Geyser is a 1.1k heal at the most, and healing rain offers no healing other than the regen. The blast combo finishers are also pretty weak, depending on the healing stat of the person applying the finisher, they range from 1.6k at the most to as little as 900-1k.
If you want to offer actual healing support, the scepter/dagger is the best for that.
@ Spifnar – Let me rephrase that. Most scepter/dagger skills are released towards one target. The fact that it can hit multiple targets thats fine (and yes in case of phoenix thats the purpose) but most of the skills are not ground targeted. With staff most of the skills are ground targeted and.
My whole point was that staff is more effective for fights with multiple targets, where other weapons are not as much.
Right for the most part, but the staff has anything but “huge” aoe heals. Geyser is a 1.1k heal at the most, and healing rain offers no healing other than the regen. The blast combo finishers are also pretty weak, depending on the healing stat of the person applying the finisher, they range from 1.6k at the most to as little as 900-1k.
If you want to offer actual healing support, the scepter/dagger is the best for that.
Geyser ticks 3 times, so its 3k healed with a support build. Also blast Finishers heal for 1.4k if I am not mistaken, if only with a 0.1 coefficient. And the Healing Rain Heal is about 6k from regeneration… Just try it sometimes, and combo it with your own blast finishers. And Blast finishers from Evasive Arcana. never will you cite scepter for heals again.
The staff is amazing in sPvP. There’s a lot of top tier teams that run with a staff ele. They are very tough to kill because they can cleanse conditions constantly and they can throw out huge aoe heals with the water 3 and 5 plus blast finishers. They do decent dmg, strong aoe. And they are perfect for killing the treb in kyhlo. The treb has a huge hit box, so the fire 5 ability just destroys it.
Right for the most part, but the staff has anything but “huge” aoe heals. Geyser is a 1.1k heal at the most, and healing rain offers no healing other than the regen. The blast combo finishers are also pretty weak, depending on the healing stat of the person applying the finisher, they range from 1.6k at the most to as little as 900-1k.
If you want to offer actual healing support, the scepter/dagger is the best for that.
Well, actually that is not true at all unless your saying that the heal on damage aspect of waters attacks in S/D, which is not my experience with it at all. Water Staff is very nice healing support. The best of any weapon combo I have tried thus far, in fact.
Its true that unfortunately with the state of the game and the Ele, Staff is our best weapon setup for a multitude of reasons that anyone who has played both sPvP and Wv3 a lot knows. I saw someone post above that Staff combo fields dont do good damage and that is absolutely and categorically a false statement.
My staff ele can hold a 1v3 for 30-60 seconds (more than enough for my buds to arrive) with kiting and 6k heals using dodge blast and arcane blast on healing rain. Or I can stack 10-20 might.
I can also stand away from the fight, stack up like 10 might out of combat, then start spamming aoe on any point (don’t just spam though- actually think. I say spam cuz it sounds funny). Absolutely devastating.
I very rarely lose 1v1. Properly using combo fields (lava font, healing rain, geyser) can stack crazy amounts of might or 3k heal per blast. With 30 in arcane and the arcane wave utility i have plenty of blast.
1v1 with a staff is ALL about creativity. Kiting, properly using combo fields, and just experience in general are the main points to 1v1 with a staff ele. IMO
been playing quite a bit of spvp and tpvp with staff elementalist lately… its combination of alot of power and toughness… its masterfull, healing rain and geyser keeps so much people alive, while meteor shower gets so much people down.
Yes, elementalists are situational and i have to agree they require more skills then other professions atm, but kitten they can be fun to play
Staff is too slow for my tastes, there’s not much you can do when someone is in your face unless they have no condition removal. stun breakers and no gap closers.
Right for the most part, but the staff has anything but “huge” aoe heals. Geyser is a 1.1k heal at the most, and healing rain offers no healing other than the regen. The blast combo finishers are also pretty weak, depending on the healing stat of the person applying the finisher, they range from 1.6k at the most to as little as 900-1k.
If you want to offer actual healing support, the scepter/dagger is the best for that.
Geyser ticks 3 times, so its 3k healed with a support build. Also blast Finishers heal for 1.4k if I am not mistaken, if only with a 0.1 coefficient. And the Healing Rain Heal is about 6k from regeneration… Just try it sometimes, and combo it with your own blast finishers. And Blast finishers from Evasive Arcana. never will you cite scepter for heals again.
And don’t forget that most other classes combo with them mroe or less automatically. Each arrow that goes through it adds another bit of restoration. I’d say the staff fields do at least 10-25% more healing than is listed. 50% more if you got a good team and a good ele (Evasive Arcana comes to mind…I can heal myself and nearby allies for about 7k health when I roll into my own Geyser).
If you can read this then it is proof that ArenaNet’s moderators just, kind and fair.
And don’t forget that most other classes combo with them mroe or less automatically. Each arrow that goes through it adds another bit of restoration. I’d say the staff fields do at least 10-25% more healing than is listed. 50% more if you got a good team and a good ele (Evasive Arcana comes to mind…I can heal myself and nearby allies for about 7k health when I roll into my own Geyser).
You can heal for so freaking much at the moment, but if evasive arcana being a blastfinisher is a bug, we are so kittening screwed and ele will lose the only thing making it viable in tPvP atm. :X
And yes, I’m aware people play roaming builds, but only because they want to, and not because they’re stronger than something else.
