Guild Wars 2

NOTE: With this “Message Body length must be less than 5001.” I have to do this in three posts.
This is all my personal opinion about this weapon.
I tend to repeat myself through out the post, but that’s the way I post, so stay with me. Also, I usually have a lot of typos.

First let me say the Staff is the most secondary weapon set in the game right now, see that I’m not counting some specific Engineer kits and some other Elementalist attunements. What do I mean by secondary? Well, it’s that set you use to support your main set, where you use the other set to do the damage. The Guardian Staff takes it as a secondary the farthest (in a bad way). You can argue that the Necro Staff could very well be one, the thing is, the Necro Staff can pack enough damage (sustained too!), that’s not what happens with the Guardian one. Well, you can even give an example with any other profession, but the thing is, none of the others have to make a sacrifice in damage or suffer a poor design of the skill set to properly apply that damage.

The problem relies on the design of all of its damaging skills.

The famous/infamous Wave of Wrath is one of the main examples; it’s a medium range (600) cone attack that does negligible damage. The problem is, that terribly low damage is logically explained by how the skill works itself. But what are the uses really? Spamming the cone nonstop on random dinamic event trash mobs? It’s not even useful against mesmers. Good luck spamming 4 autoattacks that will barely scratch the mesmer and EVEN his phantasms while these chew through your health like butter (also, nerf phantasm dmg pl0x). It’s not only that the skill just can’t do reliable damage on a single target, it just feels disjointed with the rest of the skill set being large range (Orb of Light, Symbol of Swiftness and Line of Warding). It’s a plain, boring (this is personal opinion), poor damaging skill that accomplishes mindless dinamic event trash mob killing or thowing out some poor damage into WvW zergs (you are better doing something else honestly) and little else (massively might stacking or being glass cannon to make the damage viable is all kinds of gimmick to make this viable in my opinion), there’s no sinergy with any other skill, no wide uses besides what I described above. It may be fun to others, but I personally think is for the better if this particular skill is changed/rebalanced/removed entirely. I’ll say what changes I’d make later on this post.

There’s another skill that’s supposed to pack the most damage to it, it’s Orb of Light. That slow moving poorly target assited ball of light, that one. Well, again, it’s not an effective and reliable source of damage, and it does not accomplish it’s main purpose, which is doing some respectable damage, obviously. In a higly dynamic and movement oriented enviroment (sPvP/WvW specially), is easily avoidable so it does not enough damage and the Orb of Light detonation may just not be there as it does not enough healing nor damage for the CD penalty.

Yet, the next skill that I think does not accomplish being damaging enough either is Symbol of Swiftness. It’s a relatively very small long ranged AoE that if well placed, will tick twice in a semicompetent enemy. Even the full duration is poor damage and its static damage overtime does not help either (it’s a low damage Lava Font actually). Do I really need to bring an immobilize/slow for this symbol to do enough damage, or even fully trait it (and not even then)? Some people will argue about this one, and it’s perfectly understandable as this symbol provides one of the greatest sources of swiftness in the game, so in a way, if you want this higly supportive skill to do its full damage (albeit poor still) you will have to support it some way.

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Then, we have the newely added Empower, and again, it’s poorly designed, from a fun factor point to an effectiveness one. Who here likes to stand still for four seconds waiting for an animation to end? Anyone? Have I been sitting there for fours seconds for a heal and 420 power that last the glorious amount of 8 seconds? Wasn’t there a more fun alternative of allowing this to be casted while on the move, healing more and more the more time you spend casting it while accumulating a longer duration might, or something? I donno, this skill could have been so much better implemented, it feels like rushed or something worse. It’s a skill which has strong gimmiks to it (and has some sinergy with Altruistic Healing), in sPvP is not effective as you shouldn’t stand there in middle of a fight for 4 seconds, and if you precast it, you not only waste the heal most of the time, the Might stacks duration is too low, and… it’s just not a fun skill at all.

I can’t say anything bad about Line of Wording, as this is such an amazing skill and has so many uses whether it being in sPvP, DEs or WvW (maybe even a little too strong with 1200 range). I usually take the Staff for this skill and Symbol of Swifness alone (the swiftness boon, not the damage, of course).

Sugestions:
Some of you may remember Jon Peters saying that the Staff could possibly become a 900 range weapon? If he did such a claim, he sorf of aknowledged something wasn’t entirely right with the weapon. I just hope he didn’t say it just becouse Guardians needed some long range alternatives at the time. Should we increase this or that weapon’s range? Just like that? Who designs like that? If you disagree with me I could explain this point further, but it’s not the point of this post.

We all know by now underwater weapons are designed to be much more all arounded and complete weapons with control, support and damage, that’s becouse we only have two weapon sets available (except a couple of professions). Let’s take a look at the Trident, its skills all make sense in a way that you can do respectable damage with the design of the skills allowing it, you can cast a Pilar of Light into a Weight of Justice with a Purify>Purify Blast Thrown in, it’s not a weapon you take out to clear a bunch of trash mobs occasionally or for the occasional swifness to travel through points/places faster. I know it needs to do damage as its the only alternative long range underwater weapon available, I don’t care about that, but the design, the skills feel well put together, like they have a porpuse together, thay have their own sinergy, just like using a Greatsword to pull people into your whirl of madness or with your hammer trapping people inside the ward or throwing them out of the point and immobilizing them far while you contest.

Proposals to change Wave of Wrath:
1- As I’m pretty sure the devs seem pretty reluctant to entirely change this skill, I propose to increase its range to 900, reduce the cone, greatly increase the damage component, and give it Z axis capability.
2-Make it mimic the skill 1 on the Trident, Light of Judgment, it’s an extremely spammy ball of light that bounces between foes and allies giving a small heal. I know that spammy part, is becouse of the ‘skills are performed faster while underwater philosophy’ to give that feeling of things being faster while underwater, that’s something I don’t care about. What I do care though, is we have a very similar version of this skill on land, it’s the Mesmers Staff 1, Winds of Chaos. It’s the perfect example of how a multi target low damage skill can greatly support and contribute in damage to the rest of the skill set giving fury and might. I propose to change Wave of Wrath into a version of Winds of Chaos or Light of Judgement that bounces between foes applying vulnerability and giving might to allies.

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Proposals to change Orb of Light:
1- Slightly increase its travel speed, it still keeps healing allies it passes through and damage part is kept the same. GREATLY increase the Orb of Light detonation damage, it doesn’t heal anymore, it now blinds enemies (just as it once did) nearby the detonation. The heal as it stands is absolutely craptastic and not worth the detonation, it heals for less than an autoattack damage and that’s pretty stupid for the damage you sacrifice with the CD penalty. Also, you would mitigate A LOT more damage, IN combat, with an AoE blind. Why would you cast this in combat sacificing so much damage for little to no healing? Out of combat? HP regens alone anyways, with a blind it now has a more skill based component (human skill) and more damage mitigation when it matters with a good timed AoE blind. Also, some good long range AoE damage preassure it sorely lacks right now with the detonation.
2- Same as above, except don’t increasing the travel speed and when you detonate it, instead of an AoE blind, it could immobilize for 1 second or apply any kind of slow (cripple/freeze), basically making it an AoE CC ability to make the damage of Symbol of Swiftness not wasted by a dodge 90% of the time.

Proposal to change Symbol of Swiftness (or any symbol for that matter):
Just two small proposals here, either make symbols do initial spike damage (see good damage) on the first tick and do gradually less damage as time passes; or all symbols now have a slow component on the first tick of damage.

Proposal to change Empower: Is now casted while on the move with a gradual heal overtime (that stacks with Altruistic Healing) and the gradual stacking of might is now reduced to fewer stacks but with the duration greatly increased. I think they wanted to avoid the “cast this skill on CD to have have perma Might stacks” with the low duration massive Might stacking at the end of the cast, just make it a much higher duration with lower might stacks. If Might stacking is really the problem just reduce the cast time and allow it to be used on the move and should be fine.

Proposal to change Line of Warding: If the skills are ever changed to 900 range, reduce this one to 900 as well. Fix a bug where some people without stability (or with a simple dodge) can pass through it.

This got a little long! :P

Thanks for reading!

it ends here, for real!

Khenzy.9348:

The problem relies on the design of all of its damaging skills.

No, this is the problem right here. The staff is not designed for dps. However, it is absolutely incredible for support, if only for the #4-Empower. Also, Might boosts Condition Damage as well as Power. Then give out your Virtue of Justice = melt enemy. Giving out that much might to 5 allies around you is incredibly powerful. You know how much dps a Thief or Ranger can do in 8 seconds? Also, with Altruistic Healing, Empower becomes the best heal in my bag, even better than my actual healing utility skill.

Having a hard time getting the full 4 seconds off? Activate “Stand Your Ground!” as soon as you see someone is about to mess with it. Pretty sure the Might improves how much damage Retaliation does.

In short, nothing should be taken in a vacuum. At level 6, with no other weapons or utilities or traits, sure, the staff may not be the best weapon to go solo champion mobs, but my level 80 and my allies around me absolutely love my staff and wouldn’t let me roll without it.

Romanus.8023:

Khenzy.9348:

The problem relies on the design of all of its damaging skills.

No, this is the problem right here. The staff is not designed for dps. However, it is absolutely incredible for support, if only for the #4-Empower.

Absolutely no main hand weapon in the game is designed to be as support oriented that neglects its direct or condition damage component almost entirely, or lacks the design to apply said damage, except for this one, of course.
Also, a single, gimmicky boring to perform skill should not make for a poor damaging weapon, unless you are facing up to five+ enemies and spamming 1, you are vastly underperforming. Staying there for 4 seconds every 20, does not make it a good weapon. But I respect your viewpoint, so let’s agree to disagree.

I find it to be rather an exciting challenge to try to even get the Empower off. I’m speaking of WvW here. Enemies will try to make sure I can’t get it off and I am trying to make sure I can because it will, all by itself, turn the tide of battle if I can get the whole thing off.

However, if you are speaking of PvE, I’m sure it is rather boring, as is PvE combat compared to PvP.

This is more of a tPvP/sPvP post, but as you could see, I named PvE and WvW as well. I already said Empower has its strong side, I’m just trying to suggest they make that particular skill more fun. Wouldn’t you rather be casting it while having control of your character? Aside from other problems it has that I already named in the main post.

Romanus.8023:

Khenzy.9348:

The problem relies on the design of all of its damaging skills.

Having a hard time getting the full 4 seconds off? Activate “Stand Your Ground!” as soon as you see someone is about to mess with it. Pretty sure the Might improves how much damage Retaliation does.

In short, nothing should be taken in a vacuum. At level 6, with no other weapons or utilities or traits, sure, the staff may not be the best weapon to go solo champion mobs, but my level 80 and my allies around me absolutely love my staff and wouldn’t let me roll without it.

Sorry I haven’t seen your edit there, so I edit your edit, so I edit my post to post the new editted edit.

And sorry again, but you seem to not be getting to point of my post on that particular edit.

I personally don’t really have any problems with the Staff’s skills. It’s not intended to do damage, which is perfectly fine.
It lacks a bit of internal consistency, but that argument is neither here nor there.

The staff is our ultimate support weapon. It’s completely fine as is. Trying to shoehorn it into another use is a bad idea IMO.

I don’t like it. I’d rather support my allies by creating combo fields, since this is a new, unique, rewarding and fun mechanic for both, the guardian and his allies.

I’d rather have a bow with 2 DPS abilities that don’t suck and 3 support abilities, that create combo fields and provide buffs. This would be more fun and definitely fit the knight theme more than a wand or a staff. Heck, even the Elementalist has proper spells with his staff that provide both damage and support. The reason why the staff feels awkward is that it doesn’t fit the knight theme and it’s too close to the old and incredibly boring paladin-style, something that works well in WoW, but should not be in GW2, since GW has better mechanics to support your allies, such as combo fields.

Something like the #1 ability of the underwater spear for the bow (single target vulnerability), something for AoE, maybe with burning combo field and condition, then some blind field as the bow #3, a short range regen field and some “toss your aegis” to buff allies and burn enemies in a medium combo field.

You are looking at it expecting to find an offensive weapon… Well, it’s not really an offensive weapon. We already have greatswords and hammers for that (and they are awesome).

The staff really shines as a support weapon, and an really change the tide in dungeons and WvW.

The 3 skill is a light field that does a little damage, but it gives speed, which is crucial in WvW. And it can buff lots of people!

The 4 skill can give might to lots of people, and also has a decent heal in the end. Pretty darn good in groups, really bad if you are solo.

Skill 5 is probably the best. In WvW, it can hold off quite a few people for 5s giving your side a breather, and it can also be useful in PvE. It will constantly knockdown mobs.

Even skill 2 is not that bad. It hits quite hard, and people will try to dodge it (if they see it coming), so it can give you a few seconds. Still so-so.

So yeah, power 1 and 2 are a bit lackluster, but if they were great skills, then the staff would probably be overpowered. Great support skills in addition to awesome ranged skills? That may be a bit too much.

I love the guardian’s staff and I use it more than any other weapon for guardian. It’s a monster in Dynamic Events with empower combined with Justice. And after the empower my greatsword plows through mobs like a hot knife through butter. Also it has a speed boost on it. Line of Warding has saved mykitten many times as well. Orb of light is very useful in personal story as it’s the only skill in the game I know that will only aggravate one mob so long as it’s not in a line. The wide cone hits a ton of mobs in Dynamic Events which really makes up for the low dps, and in a large group it procs Justice like crazy. In PvP, the staff melts mesmers and leaves them helpless when combined with spirit weapons. The best part is that their illusion’s on death skills won’t hit because you aren’t in range of them. When combined with stability and Altruistic Healing, it can change the tide of battle in seconds on a contested capture point. I feel staff is one of the better weapons for Guardians, just not for 1 on 1 fights unless you’re fighting a pet class.

the Guardian just doesnt have “range dps”.

range support is fine.
and really, its not like youre going to charge that champion harpy with your 2h sword anyway.
nobody melee the champions. so you are conan vs the mobs and doctor doogie vs boss.
live with it or switch class

staff #4 + heal when giving allies boons = full heal for you.
Staff is support, not DPS.

symbol of swiftness does a fair amount of damage. Add in the ability to grant swiftness to a ton of people on a fairly fast cooldown.. perfect as it is.

Go play a warrior.

Love the staff, it’s great if you play support in the midline, or in front of a siege or a bridge fight.

Against a tightly bound zerg, from these close positions, the #1 and #2 skills do fine AoE damage.

Empower is also excellent in such conditions. The heal it gets off effects a ludicrous amount of people.

Avatar.1923:

nobody melee the champions

I do! One of my best experiences in GW2 so far is two rangers + me taking down a Champion Giant Ettin. I’d dive in to melee, apply burns and blinds, dodge and weave. Kite when I’m waiting for cooldowns. Get back into melee. Rinse, repeat.

The whole thing took about 20 minutes, plus three respawns with three veteran ettins. But we made it. It was amazing.

I dont believe staff is living up to it’s expectation. Aside some very situational skills, you are just nerfing your group.

It always break my heart to see guardians wearing staves. They believe their are supporting their team with an increadiable weak healing, with a close to useless might (8 seconds for something you stood still for 4 seconds not doing anything?) or that even more than laughable aoe.

Staff is only when you need to kite/run or line of ward some place.
Grab a 1h/focus and you’ll be far more usefull. That way not only you get 3 free blocks, but get 2 blinding skills, defense against ranged attack and of course, decent dmg.

Want to play a more supportive type? Even a greatsword brings more to the group than a staff. AoE pulls (that if doesnt pull, it at least interrupt), aoe blind and some good aoe.
A single dmg you cast with your GS is a cone aoe, far stronger than your staff.

Reihert.1509:

I dont believe staff is living up to it’s expectation. Aside some very situational skills, you are just nerfing your group.

It always break my heart to see guardians wearing staves. They believe their are supporting their team with an increadiable weak healing, with a close to useless might (8 seconds for something you stood still for 4 seconds not doing anything?) or that even more than laughable aoe.

Staff is only when you need to kite/run or line of ward some place.
Grab a 1h/focus and you’ll be far more usefull. That way not only you get 3 free blocks, but get 2 blinding skills, defense against ranged attack and of course, decent dmg.

Want to play a more supportive type? Even a greatsword brings more to the group than a staff. AoE pulls (that if doesnt pull, it at least interrupt), aoe blind and some good aoe.
A single dmg you cast with your GS is a cone aoe, far stronger than your staff.

Thank you for getting it, thank you really. It makes my massive wall of text worth it. The uses of the Staff are unfairly narrowed due to its apparently great support capabilities (are we talking about swiftness and ridiculously short duration might here? and Altruistic Healing just makes Empower an overpowered skill), this doesn’t happen with any other weapon in the game, I already gave some examples.

Also, why do you people keep bringing up Line of Warding (which I said is FINE in my post) and Empower, which I said could be made MORE fun than it is already? I feel some of you didn’t even read my posts at all.

I was about to make a thread about this.

I think all of the skills make sense except symbol of swiftness. The auto attack isn’t very fun either.

While I’m no expert when it comes to balancing, I too would like to see a rework with the staff. It just feels all over the place with no real definitive strengths to boast about aside from Line of Warding. Most of what you have stated about Orb of Light, Empower, and Symbol of Swiftness I do agree with, too.

Just because it is a “support” oriented weapon doesn’t mean you have to take the backseat to the encounter. An AoE blind from Orb of Light would be an excellent addition, and having an offensive counterpart to Symbol of Swiftness would definitely help it feel like a skill that can be used in the thick of a fight, instead of just a quick way to gain swiftness to get from place to place.

I’m really not sure what game you are playing when 8s of 12 stacks of might, plus a decent heal is seen as nerfing your group. You realize it doesn’t have the same 5 man limitation of almost all other group buffs?

I will say that it does suffer from diminishing returns. The less people around you, the less effective the staff is, and if you are with only 2 other people, it is rather lackluster. However, in a large WvW or DE fight, it really gets into the overpowered side of things.

I play mostly WvW, and usually have at least 10-15 allies around me. That makes it well worth it.

I will agree that at first it felt clunky and a bit all over the place, but after using it for a while, it has grown on me. I use it as an opener and then switch to Mace and Shield and move in to protect and disrupt and switch back as soon as I know Empower is ready again.

I would also argue that saying Empower is not a set up for a combo is short-sighted. If you can coordinate with allies so that they use a huge burst skill right after getting that ridiculous amount of might, things melt.

Example I have used in a Dungeon = Empower goes up and right at the end our mezmer gave us all quickness, and I give out Justice. So, hitting twice as fast, inflict burning, all with 12 stacks of Might. Sounds like a pretty darn good combo for only the expense of a 4 second channel. Nerfing the group? Not at all.

I just don’t like how bad the #2 detonation is. Detonating abilities is fun, but there’s pretty much no reason to do it with the guardian staff.

The staff is certainly a weird weapon, it’s too bad it doesn’t have a single target or bouncing projectile finisher like the Necro’s staff or the Thief’s shortbow, then you could actually combo with your Light Fields (staff 3 and 5) the way a Thief / Necro can combo with their poison, dark, and smoke fields.

Staff 2 is a bit frustrating and unintuitive; the best damage from it comes from not detonating it, and ideally firing at a target near a wall / uneven ground at minimum range.

Staff 3 is okay, I like that it’s a light field and that it benefits from being a Symbol; same with Staff 5 (despite it being called a Ward in the tooltip, its a Symbol and gets Symbol trait bonuses like causing healing, vulnerability, size increase, etc) but without a projectile finisher, and without staff 4 doing a Blast at the start and the End (like most other channeled Blasts), you can’t do anything clever with it.

The only gripe I have with the staff is with the #1 & #2 abilities.

If they would just

1: Move the first ability to the second slot (& delete the second slot ability), double-triple its damage & put it on a 5 second CD.

2: Copy paste the #1 skill ability from the trident & put it on the #1 skill slot for the staff.

After that the staff would be fine.

Vargs.6234:

I just don’t like how bad the #2 detonation is. Detonating abilities is fun, but there’s pretty much no reason to do it with the guardian staff.

pretty much this. Detonating even increases the cooldown of the skill, youd think this would mean it would make the skill stronger but nope

I just don’t like it because it’s too support, and the supports kinda meh as well. Sure those few seconds of might stacks is great for everyone around, me, but it’s not like I can swap to greatsword and get some damage off with it, it’s falling off me too fast.

A lot of people bring up it’s great support and say that it’s fine because of that, but I’m sorry it’s not fine. That line of thinking right there is a prime example of the “standard mmo” model of thinking that people still need to break out of. This is a game of being capable to do all roles at one time to varying degrees, not doing one role to the exclusion of all others…

The only thing the staff is currently good for is hitting people through gates and buffing groups with might for a couple seconds just before a big zerg hit, then you weapon swap and don’t look back.

The weapon needs work.

I don’t quite agree with everpoint but I can agree that the staff ( and also the secpter) fell like we need to give the Guardian one more wapone solutions.

It does provide a nice amount if support. But every other class can do something similare maybe a bit less scaled but with lower CD and without giving all ther dmg up for it ( thake the ele or necro).
A-net hasn’t said a word about it. I dunno why maybe they know the kitten they did and sit it out till they have a change or maybe they acutally think it is fun to bust out low heals and be the speed kitten. As far as that goes the only optiones of a guardian to support and do dmg are mellee range (2h and mace) and it is not possible to stay 100% of the time in mellee range ( unless you run one of those akward 100% blind build but then again you give up on a lot of utility and fast attacking bosses still fu you over.) They need to tweak the guardian quite a lot, but so they need to do to a lot of classes. Tbh besiedes the warrior( and maybe the ranger ) every class is not what it is meant to be.

Keldrath.4735:

I just don’t like it because it’s too support, and the supports kinda meh as well. Sure those few seconds of might stacks is great for everyone around, me, but it’s not like I can swap to greatsword and get some damage off with it, it’s falling off me too fast.

A lot of people bring up it’s great support and say that it’s fine because of that, but I’m sorry it’s not fine. That line of thinking right there is a prime example of the “standard mmo” model of thinking that people still need to break out of. This is a game of being capable to do all roles at one time to varying degrees, not doing one role to the exclusion of all others…

The only thing the staff is currently good for is hitting people through gates and buffing groups with might for a couple seconds just before a big zerg hit, then you weapon swap and don’t look back.

The weapon needs work.

Why do I spend the time to write a 3 post long wall of text when someone like you comes and explains it so much better in much fewer lines of text? (that’s a compliment btw!).

I want a chain on auto attack for Staff to have a heal and protection or just a heal.

I like the Staff. Would change Empower a bit to something more useful to my group, maybe allow it to make the guardian immune to damage while casting but cant move.

and change Orb. Orb need to be changed. thats the worst skill on the bar.

I feel the 1-4 abilities need a bit of a rework.

1. Needs to be changed to a bouncing orb of light that hits an enemy then bounces to the nearest ally heals them, then bounces back to the enemy and ends, much like the tridents ability, this would allow the auto attack to have mediocre up-front damage, but hit twice as well as support allies that are in melee.

2. Completely remove this exploding orb crap, replace it with a ground targets orb that starts in the air, and then crashes into the ground healing allies, and damaging and blinding foes., this gives you a LOT more control over the ability, while also giving it some actual combat utility.

3. Add an cripple/weakness effect for 5 seconds to foes that stand/pass through the symbol, possibly slightly increase the upfront damage on symbols on all weapons, and make the damage falloff after the first 2 seconds.

4. This ability is great, but I feel like you should be able to move while casting it, and maybe have it heal every second instead of one big burst at the end.

5. Leave it as is, this ability is awesome in everything, if I HAD to ask for something, I would ask that this also absorbs projectiles, and maybe the cooldown increased by 5 seconds if that was added.

I actually really appreciate the staff. It has a very varied ability set. That being said the damage is definitely too low to be used as a stand alone weapon, which I believe is a flaw. It shouldn’t be a powerhouse because it has so many great support skills, but it should be at least reasonable as a stand alone combat option.

If the #1 cone was narrowed along with a damage increase and the #2 orb both traveled faster and did more damage, I think the staff would be a combat contender with other 2-handed weapons.

Keldrath.4735:

I just don’t like it because it’s too support, and the supports kinda meh as well. Sure those few seconds of might stacks is great for everyone around, me, but it’s not like I can swap to greatsword and get some damage off with it, it’s falling off me too fast.

A lot of people bring up it’s great support and say that it’s fine because of that, but I’m sorry it’s not fine. That line of thinking right there is a prime example of the “standard mmo” model of thinking that people still need to break out of. This is a game of being capable to do all roles at one time to varying degrees, not doing one role to the exclusion of all others…

The only thing the staff is currently good for is hitting people through gates and buffing groups with might for a couple seconds just before a big zerg hit, then you weapon swap and don’t look back.

The weapon needs work.

It’s supposed to be support. The entire idea of support isn’t just to buff yourself to be able to solo anything, it’s to enhance the group of people you’re with; and the staff is perfect for this. So you can’t get any damage off with it; so what? I just don’t see why that’s a problem.

It is fine. And it’s not that line of thinking that’s a problem from past MMO’s, I’d argue it’s the idea that it needs to do DPS instead. This isn’t a game where it’s stupid to bring anything other than more DPS because your tank and healer are already maintaining the fight and just need the mob downed.

It’s not a major deterrent if one weapon isn’t a DPS weapon when you can switch any time you want on the fly to something that is. You aren’t locking yourself into one role, because you have two weapons and can fulfill completely different roles on the fly, as needed, multiple times throughout the same fight. The versatility is in the classes and what’s available on their weapon switches rather than making each weapon independently powerful so that weapon switching is just a matter of taste.

Eh, I’ll try some of your all’s suggestions. It’s a weapon I want to like, but it feels very awkward and unintuitive to use to me. I had not considered combining with Justice … but I’m not sure that’ll make that weird cone/orb synergy any better.

Right now I keep it on me solo for tagging event mobs, otherwise I prefer melee to actually impact the fight.

tclark.8956:

Keldrath.4735:

I just don’t like it because it’s too support, and the supports kinda meh as well. Sure those few seconds of might stacks is great for everyone around, me, but it’s not like I can swap to greatsword and get some damage off with it, it’s falling off me too fast.

A lot of people bring up it’s great support and say that it’s fine because of that, but I’m sorry it’s not fine. That line of thinking right there is a prime example of the “standard mmo” model of thinking that people still need to break out of. This is a game of being capable to do all roles at one time to varying degrees, not doing one role to the exclusion of all others…

The only thing the staff is currently good for is hitting people through gates and buffing groups with might for a couple seconds just before a big zerg hit, then you weapon swap and don’t look back.

The weapon needs work.

It’s supposed to be support. The entire idea of support isn’t just to buff yourself to be able to solo anything, it’s to enhance the group of people you’re with; and the staff is perfect for this. So you can’t get any damage off with it; so what? I just don’t see why that’s a problem.

It is fine. And it’s not that line of thinking that’s a problem from past MMO’s, I’d argue it’s the idea that it needs to do DPS instead. This isn’t a game where it’s stupid to bring anything other than more DPS because your tank and healer are already maintaining the fight and just need the mob downed.

It’s not a major deterrent if one weapon isn’t a DPS weapon when you can switch any time you want on the fly to something that is. You aren’t locking yourself into one role, because you have two weapons and can fulfill completely different roles on the fly, as needed, multiple times throughout the same fight. The versatility is in the classes and what’s available on their weapon switches rather than making each weapon independently powerful so that weapon switching is just a matter of taste.

It’s not a matter of being a DPS weapon or not, and in that case, why is it the only weapon in the game that you use for the support and then impatiently wait the 10 seconds CD on weapon swap to get back to a more competitive set damage-wise?
ALL weapons are independently powerful, accomplish their own roles AND do respectable damage, except this one (I’ve checked any other weapon set in the game, so we can argue about this one if you want). Also, apart from Wave of Wrath that does justified low damage (as I said in my post) by how the skill works (even though I think is an extremely poor skill), the other supposedly damaging skills are just poorly designed to do much of the intended damage.

Many people here just focus on the 4 seconds static boring channeled skill, the swiftness boon and Line of Wording, so if that makes it AN INCREDIBLY AWESOME SUPER FUN support weapon, the other skills might as well be subpar in damage (or means to apply the damage), or even no sense in the design (Orb of Light detonation), so that’s justified in itself. Right?

Avatar.1923:

the Guardian just doesnt have “range dps”.

range support is fine.
and really, its not like youre going to charge that champion harpy with your 2h sword anyway.
nobody melee the champions. so you are conan vs the mobs and doctor doogie vs boss.
live with it or switch class

I do it’s fun. Admittedly it involves a lot of circular kiting and rolling but hey, not gonna let poor range DPS stop me from trying to kill anything.

I would very much like to see the staff #1 ability changed to be similar to #2 Orb but detonation AoE blinds . Either way, I really hate the auto attack of the #1 ability. Rather corny and ineffective beyond tagging mobs in Dynamic Events…

If it acted similar to #2 Orb, even with the slow speed, we could use it to support groups with a well placed AOE Blind, reducing damage, and improving our ability to dodge/kite mobs; which is what I end up doing a lot when playing the heal/support role. A rotation of two effectively damaging orbs with secondary support abilities would be a lot of fun.

I really enjoy the staff, but I also kind-of agree with many of the negative comments in this post. I think the negativity is a little exaggerated though; the staff is very close to being a good weapon but just needs a few small tweaks. I’m not going to suggest major skill redesigns here as I doubt they could be implemented any time soon.

1 – most of the time I can’t even tell if I’m casting it or not. I think a more obvious casting effect and sound would help as would a small damage buff and possibly a narrower cone effect to compensate for the damage buff (or alternatively a max 5 targets cap like other AoEs).

2 – I like it, but a small boost in travel speed would be nice.

3 – Fantastic support tool (near-perma swiftness for your entire group is amazing) but a small damage buff to improve it’s offensive use would be nice.

4 – I agree that the root isn’t much fun, but the Asura casting animation makes it worthwhile. Maybe a slightly reduced cast time so we’re not rooted as long? Not sure this needs any changes actually.

5 – Possibly the best skill we have? Well, second to Wall of Reflection maybe…

3, 4, and 5 are all awesome as they are if you ask me. These are the changes I’d like to see:

1- Basically make it so that the damage scales with how many enemies are in the cone it affects. So if you are hitting one target it would deal more damage than it would if there are five.

2- Let us cast this ability without the need to target an enemy first (send the orb towards the direction we are facing). Alternatively, let us target a friendly target so that it travels towards them instead.

I agree with the OP except on the symbol of swiftness. I think it’s fine. It gives you and your allies a speed boost and slows enemies by tagging them as “in combat”. I think that’s all it’s for.

tclark.8956:

Keldrath.4735:

I just don’t like it because it’s too support, and the supports kinda meh as well. Sure those few seconds of might stacks is great for everyone around, me, but it’s not like I can swap to greatsword and get some damage off with it, it’s falling off me too fast.

A lot of people bring up it’s great support and say that it’s fine because of that, but I’m sorry it’s not fine. That line of thinking right there is a prime example of the “standard mmo” model of thinking that people still need to break out of. This is a game of being capable to do all roles at one time to varying degrees, not doing one role to the exclusion of all others…

The only thing the staff is currently good for is hitting people through gates and buffing groups with might for a couple seconds just before a big zerg hit, then you weapon swap and don’t look back.

The weapon needs work.

It’s supposed to be support. The entire idea of support isn’t just to buff yourself to be able to solo anything, it’s to enhance the group of people you’re with; and the staff is perfect for this. So you can’t get any damage off with it; so what? I just don’t see why that’s a problem.

It is fine. And it’s not that line of thinking that’s a problem from past MMO’s, I’d argue it’s the idea that it needs to do DPS instead. This isn’t a game where it’s stupid to bring anything other than more DPS because your tank and healer are already maintaining the fight and just need the mob downed.

It’s not a major deterrent if one weapon isn’t a DPS weapon when you can switch any time you want on the fly to something that is. You aren’t locking yourself into one role, because you have two weapons and can fulfill completely different roles on the fly, as needed, multiple times throughout the same fight. The versatility is in the classes and what’s available on their weapon switches rather than making each weapon independently powerful so that weapon switching is just a matter of taste.

Oh there’s nothing wrong with that… in a trinity game with tanks+healers+dps.

Sorry, this is GW2, I’m not a healer. Everything is damage. The only thing that differs is whether you are supporting your allies by buffing them, or by controlling the enemy. Currently the staff is too heavily focused on the support, completely forgoing the damage and the control aspects of the game. Which although you may feel good about buffing everybody, makes you completely ineffective. It’s clearly not working as intended, it fills one role, and it doesn’t even fill it all that well either.

Every weapon is supposed to be a dps weapon by design, for every. single. class. If one is not, that is broken.

If the staff did a significant amount of dps alongside the great support it brings, it would be the only weapon anyone would use.

Staves are fine as is. If you don’t like them, don’t use them. Their role is VERY solid.

Hmm…I mean I don’t really use the staff, but that’s because I don’t have a good one. I don’t think the staff is bad, it’s just not great. If they want to make it more support, I’d say do stuff like this:

Skill 1: Make it more like Trident’s “Light of Judgment”, as in maybe it fires slower, but heals/damages for enough to matter. Either that, or make it bounce a few times just like the Trident, as I think that skill is awesome.

Skill 2: Make the orb oscillate (like, go forward while circling) or go side to side, akin to a figure-eight pattern. Or make it bigger, and the damage stack as it passes through/over someone.

Skill 3: I’d say the symbol is fine as is, though maybe should apply burning to one enemy (and one only, otherwise it’s borderline OP).

Skill 4: Pretty awesome, but hard to get off. Maybe add a block to the first or second half of the channel, making it more viable.

Skill 5: I think this line is cool but may need to be bigger and in a curved shape. Like (, or something. The straight like makes it too easy to walk around. I just think it needs to be a bit bigger for its CD.

Then again, I’m biased, so this may just make the staff completely OP. :P

Christ you like repeating yourself.

You’re using the weapon wrong. It’s a support weapon, and it does a beautiful job at that. Your post is equal to whining that you can’t use Elixir Gun to solo champions.

I do not agree or disagree with your request to change the staff, but I do want to point out the tactics that I use and how difficult it is to play well with the staff.
I only PVE right now and I can see how this process would be difficult to maintain practically in PVP. If I am using the staff in a way that developers intended then so be it, but if this is not the amount of effort they intended then maybe a change is in order:

I use Sword/Focus and alt Staff
Utilities = Sig-Dmg, Sig+Heal, Sig+Power, Traited for burning blocks and sig improvements

-I usually start the fight with flashing blade and auto attack until one flame Dot is applied past my aegis sheild dropping.
- I then evade away from the enemy and put on my shield of wrath and change to my staff, running away from the enemy (if ranged mob I usually LOS them with pre-planned escape route lol)
-Drop Line of Warding.
- Symbol of swiftness to stand in (so that my SoW will combo when it detonates)
-Cast Empower and cross fingers
-Fire off orb of light, detonate after I see the first dmg number pop off
-Use Virtue of Justice
(wall usually drops by now)
-Change to sword, use Zealot’s Def. (usually still have 9 might stacks plus the burning from VoJ)
-Flashing blade
-Virtue of Courage
-Virtue of Resolve (if health is down 25%)
-Renewed Focus
(Heal using SigResolveRayofJudge when needed)
-Then start again with running away and casting Shield of Wrath.

Of course this is a very tangible rotation and circumstances change frequently and I have to make conditional judgement calls. If my process fails then it catastrophically fails and my tactic becomes dodge, heal, and swing(in priority) until CDs are off and I can try again.
Typically I just use the staff as block/buff weapon then back to the real damage. I once wanted to use the staff as my primary weapon against champions but almost never got a gold that way. With the sword I can move in, deal my damage, back off, aoe(weakly), heal up, then move in again.

If this is the way the developers intended me to use it then I consider it a pro-only combo as I have yet to see anyone else with this setup in game. I refuse to use the GS or Hammer builds as it is very common and due to long cast times and close range typically end badly against a champion and sometimes even against a veteran. I know I am often among the last guardians standing at the end of a fight if I pull it off right, which is most of the time.

I agree with the OP> the staff skills just don’t flow well enough.. not on their own and not as much with anything else because of the cluncky mechanics associated with this weapon.

I agree that the staff is designed as a support weapon, and I keep using it on my guardian (because… feeling like Gandalf…with armor…); still, I’d like to see a bit more damage on it. Just my opinion.