Guild Wars 2

Let me start by saying I’m primarily an open-world PvEer, so the staff may very well be more useful in dungeons, PvP, or WvW (I can certainly see it having it’s uses in zerg vs zerg).

I’ve got five characters at 80, the last of which to get full exotic gear was my elementalist. I took him for a Southsun karka-farming test-run yesterday, and I feel as though I’m working twice as hard as my other characters to get the same results. I’ve got to attunement jump and chain-skills together to do the same damage my other characters do with minimal effort and I’m not nearly as durable any of them. Now it’s not as though I didn’t expect to have to attunement jump to maximize effeciency; I just didn’t expect all that work to equate to such ho-hum results.

So against tougher mobs I’m working harder to get the same results as my other characters. Against trash mobs fireball spam is all that’s required, and that’s as interesting and engaging as it sounds (i.e. not very). And the the scarcity of densely packed mobs against which my AoE-strengths can shine means the one thing that’s supposed to set this character apart from my others rarely comes into play.

All in all, as a PvEer I’m finding the staff to be underwhelming. What about you?

PS – Now I know some people believe the staff is supposed to be the elementalist’s support weapon; but I disagree (in part). The lack of weapon swapping means every weapon set an elementalist can equi kitten upposed to be capable of filling more than just one role. The damage is there, it just takes a lot more effort than other professions to achieve.

In my experience I’ve noticed that the staff is not a very “involving” weapon to play with the elementalist. You stay well away from the mob and blast it with fire skills.

Looking back (I have long since abandoned using the staff)
Most of the source of DPS came from my fire attunement.

Sources of DPS on the other attunements are seriously lacking.
That said, I highly encourage looking at other builds with your staff; you can go less defensive with staff and go more glass cannon cause you are able to maintain your range.

Mash Hog.5672:

In my experience I’ve noticed that the staff is not a very “involving” weapon to play with the elementalist. You stay well away from the mob and blast it with fire skills.

Looking back (I have long since abandoned using the staff)
Most of the source of DPS came from my fire attunement.

Sources of DPS on the other attunements are seriously lacking.
That said, I highly encourage looking at other builds with your staff; you can go less defensive with staff and go more glass cannon cause you are able to maintain your range.

I’m running pretty close to full glass cannon. I’m 30/20/0/0/20 with berserker’s weapon and armor and beryl trinkets for a spot of needed health.

And I agree with you about the attunements. They’ve each got a hard-hitting skill in the 2-slot, but other than that it’s either damage in fire or a bunch of utility. Now I’m not one to thumb my nose at utility, but unfortunately much of this game is designed in a way that damage trumps utility when it comes to dealing with problems.

For overworld content where you’d like to stay at range, but don’t feel you need to have all the utility/CC tools on the staff…use a scepter instead.