Guild Wars 2

They always talk about build diversity, and then completely break guardian staff.

Would be nice to get a real in deapth explanation about this from Anet. And in it, how their thought is when it comes to AH guards in WvW. Because now, staff is kind of semi-useless for anything.

My bet is that it is yet another pve farming nerf, withouth thinking of the consequenses for other game modes that rely on the staff.

Nice to be in a fight, and maybe the other set on cooldown, while running around hitting air with a useless stick.

Communication pls.

So have we seen an official reaction from anet on this topic, are they looking into this, or just trying to not notice the current rage…

I agree the range nerf is not good. The staff 1 niche did give something for support to do small sustaining aoe damage. It was always better to auto 1 your other weapon set for cleave or single target damage anyway, the rate of fire of Staff 1 was bad enough for the damage.

I want a revert of staff range too.

Just looking over this thread you can see not very many people have played Guardian in a WvW raiding guild.
My leader mains guard for when my guild raids and without that range you can’t really kite bombs or get procs for VoJ.
The staffs kits lends itself to playing at range and effectively has 4 usable skills now. Even having one unusable weapon skill totally cans a weapon for whatever purpose you have hoped to use it for.

I’m just hoping they redesign staff cause this is killing my fervor for Firebrand, knowing they crippled core guard for the sole purpose of selling PoF to guardian mains…

Just out of curiosity, Dervs, after THIS many years, especially without any particular notable amount of complaints on the state of the guardian’s staff, what sort of bad dream did you have that night to have woken up one day and go: This staff 1 is so going down and I personally see to that. Now it is one hair short of being a melee weapon with s—tty damage, I just want to know why and why now. Even if you dervs might have lost a PvP match against a staff guardian that one night, imagine that, but that’s definitely not a good reason it being anyway broken.

Pretty sure they gutted Staff simply because they’re too OP in WVW after the buff in several condition traits for Guardian.

A bunch of Guardians Spam 1 -> bunch of AOE burn on a whole zerg.

Maybe they should have just separate Staff 1 per game mode (WVW/PVP/PVE)

PS: Did a quick test in mist, by spamming staff 1, I can apply 13 stacks of burning to a whole group of Golems with cripple and 11 stacks of vulnerability. This is only the auto attack.

Now imagine a group of Guardians do that from 600 range with pve condition food in a zerg… There’s barely any counter-play since they ignore projectile reflection , hit a wide arc and can hit through obstacles/ walls.

Pretty sure they gutted Staff simply because they’re too OP in WVW after the buff in several condition traits for Guardian.

A bunch of Guardians Spam 1 → bunch of AOE burn on a whole zerg.

Maybe they should have just separate Staff 1 per game mode (WVW/PVP/PVE)

PS: Did a quick test in mist, by spamming staff 1, I can apply 13 stacks of burning to a whole group of Golems + cripple + 11 stacks of vulnerability.
This is only the auto attack.

Now imagine a group of Guardians do that from 600 range with pve condition food in a zerg… There’s barely any counter-play since they ignore projectile reflection , hit a wide arc and can hit through obstacles/ walls.

Aomine.5012:

Pretty sure they gutted Staff simply because they’re too OP in WVW after the buff in several condition traits for Guardian.

A bunch of Guardians Spam 1 -> bunch of AOE burn on a whole zerg.

Maybe they should have just separate Staff 1 per game mode (WVW/PVP/PVE)

PS: Did a quick test in mist, by spamming staff 1, I can apply 13 stacks of burning to a whole group of Golems with cripple and 11 stacks of vulnerability. This is only the auto attack.

Now imagine a group of Guardians do that from 600 range with pve condition food in a zerg… There’s barely any counter-play since they ignore projectile reflection , hit a wide arc and can hit through obstacles/ walls.

its not the buffs to vanilla that is the issue.

Its the final trait in FB that messes this up in combination with the amount of quickness a FB can spew out. I done some math and with staff it would be possible to maintain over 20 stacks of burning with the auto alone if you build for quickness in FB and trait QuickFire. Add in purging flames and judges intervention and can pretty much burn 8k per second and also spike burst with burns, from range.

So basically perma 20 stacks burning, 15-17 stacks vulnerability and perma cripple would be possible. And who said we didn’t have cover condis :-)

The issue i have is that the nerf is imo needed but they did go about it the wrong way. Why not increase casting time and up direct damage greatly. This would reduce the impact of permeathing wrath.

Or narrow the cone and increase the range to 900. This would also be in line with other skills in the staff and also reduce the impact of permeathing wrath.

Or combine a narrow cone, more range with longer casting times.

The solution they picked just had to be the worst one. No i got one that’s even worse, deleting the auto from the skillbar, but it is marginally worse since it’s of no use in its current iteration.

Brutaly.6257:

Aomine.5012:

Pretty sure they gutted Staff simply because they’re too OP in WVW after the buff in several condition traits for Guardian.

A bunch of Guardians Spam 1 -> bunch of AOE burn on a whole zerg.

Maybe they should have just separate Staff 1 per game mode (WVW/PVP/PVE)

PS: Did a quick test in mist, by spamming staff 1, I can apply 13 stacks of burning to a whole group of Golems with cripple and 11 stacks of vulnerability. This is only the auto attack.

Now imagine a group of Guardians do that from 600 range with pve condition food in a zerg… There’s barely any counter-play since they ignore projectile reflection , hit a wide arc and can hit through obstacles/ walls.

its not the buffs to vanilla that is the issue.

Its the final trait in FB that messes this up in combination with the amount of quickness a FB can spew out. I done some math and with staff it would be possible to maintain over 20 stacks of burning with the auto alone if you build for quickness in FB and trait QuickFire. Add in purging flames and judges intervention and can pretty much burn 8k per second and also spike burst with burns, from range.

So basically perma 20 stacks burning, 15-17 stacks vulnerability and perma cripple would be possible. And who said we didn’t have cover condis :-)

The issue i have is that the nerf is imo needed but they did go about it the wrong way. Why not increase casting time and up direct damage greatly. This would reduce the impact of permeathing wrath.

Or narrow the cone and increase the range to 900. This would also be in line with other skills in the staff and also reduce the impact of permeathing wrath.

Or combine a narrow cone, more range with longer casting times.

The solution they picked just had to be the worst one. No i got one that’s even worse, deleting the auto from the skillbar, but it is marginally worse since it’s of no use in its current iteration.

Thanks for summarizing the issue in a clearer way.

I think it’s pretty obvious why they nerf it. The people who didn’t get the reason and still saying staff was underpowered probably never leave their power build and try condition Guardian even once.

I’m well aware the way they nerf it may not be the best one, I’m just saying some people were still clueless about why they nerf it, saying staff was always useless outside of tagging foes, which is kinda hilarious.

Aomine.5012:

Brutaly.6257:

Aomine.5012:

Pretty sure they gutted Staff simply because they’re too OP in WVW after the buff in several condition traits for Guardian.

A bunch of Guardians Spam 1 -> bunch of AOE burn on a whole zerg.

Maybe they should have just separate Staff 1 per game mode (WVW/PVP/PVE)

PS: Did a quick test in mist, by spamming staff 1, I can apply 13 stacks of burning to a whole group of Golems with cripple and 11 stacks of vulnerability. This is only the auto attack.

Now imagine a group of Guardians do that from 600 range with pve condition food in a zerg… There’s barely any counter-play since they ignore projectile reflection , hit a wide arc and can hit through obstacles/ walls.

its not the buffs to vanilla that is the issue.

Its the final trait in FB that messes this up in combination with the amount of quickness a FB can spew out. I done some math and with staff it would be possible to maintain over 20 stacks of burning with the auto alone if you build for quickness in FB and trait QuickFire. Add in purging flames and judges intervention and can pretty much burn 8k per second and also spike burst with burns, from range.

So basically perma 20 stacks burning, 15-17 stacks vulnerability and perma cripple would be possible. And who said we didn’t have cover condis :-)

The issue i have is that the nerf is imo needed but they did go about it the wrong way. Why not increase casting time and up direct damage greatly. This would reduce the impact of permeathing wrath.

Or narrow the cone and increase the range to 900. This would also be in line with other skills in the staff and also reduce the impact of permeathing wrath.

Or combine a narrow cone, more range with longer casting times.

The solution they picked just had to be the worst one. No i got one that’s even worse, deleting the auto from the skillbar, but it is marginally worse since it’s of no use in its current iteration.

Thanks for summarizing the issue in a clearer way.

I think it’s pretty obvious why they nerf it. The people who didn’t get the reason and still saying staff was underpowered probably never leave their power build and try condition Guardian even once.

I’m well aware the way they nerf it may not be the best one, I’m just saying some people were still clueless about why they nerf it, saying staff was always useless outside of tagging foes, which is kinda hilarious.

Why they do it is obvious when FB is released. The way they do it is just plain stupid.

Aomine.5012:

I’m well aware the way they nerf it may not be the best one, I’m just saying some people were still clueless about why they nerf it, saying staff was always useless outside of tagging foes, which is kinda hilarious.

Of course the thread is in response to the particular recently nerf, i.e. “the way they nerfed it”, and you admitted that change “may not be the best one”. That admission would clearly indicate that you would have question as to why they nerfed that that way, which kinda undermine your “kinda hilarious” statement pertaining people who question the change and directed it way back at youself. What will happen to people who don’t play FB or any condi heavy build and wish to use staff? Changing a core weapon around a single specialization is simply shallow and bad design, not just “may not be the best”. If a trait that render a single core skill over-performing, fine, i get it, change is needed, but fix should be at the trait level rather than nerfing a core skill all together, affecting all other builds, just to cater towards a single trait. Like you said, splitting the skill could be an option, but in WvW , Zerg clash is already a cesspool of condis with almost instant death if you get caught in that unprepared anyways.

I was hoping the buffs to other staff skills would offset the change to the staff, but really it feels really awkward now. Just as well to use my GS and kill stuff rather than offer support in melee.

The 600 range was an OK compromise for me in place of a really long ranged weapon. Now, I just can’t see using staff.

Oh well.

Yakez.7561:

Back in 2012 was expecting to play guard as main. Proper human char to relate. Never happened. Support was non existent in bers meta.

Then they released HoT with Dragonhunter. Longbow damage spec… Useless in PvE, fractals, raids.

And at least I played guardian as main in WvW. And now they nerf the main Guard weapon in WvW giving nothing in exchange, because of PvE lootstick? And lets be real WvW loot do not cover WvW expenses. And most of the time u use hammer or GS in melee train if u are proper guard, not tagging kitten.

Nerf then shortbow on thief then. Axe on ranger. And just remove necro from the game already.

Lol, axe auto 1 from ranger was nerfed to 2 target already, also being one of the lowest dps weapon from ranger, and locking you in BM line if you want to get any use out of it. Basically they’re inferior version of DH’s LB.

Know your kitten before you speak cuz Ranger’s axe main-hand is never that good in any contents. It also follows the projectile role, meaning they’d get reflected or obstructed constantly in wvw.

Staff didn’t need to be brought down to three hundred range. This comes down to a lack of imagination on the part of those in charge of professions at Anet.

There was a simple way to change this- keep the shotgun as it was or even longer range but to make it the first of a three step auto attack chain.

First press: Shotgun, seven hundred fifty range, frontal cone, but narrow the cone to sixty degrees.

Second press: Staff Sweep- six hundred range, front cleave attack with a light wave animation, one hundred twenty degree arc. Damage applies either short duration vulnerability or weakness.

Third Press: Shockwave- Staff is jabbed downwards into the ground and releases a combination burst of aoe damage and healing similar to the old Empower but stronger(single pulse with a good return on healing power investment for those who go bunker rather than condition.)

Make the chain usable on the move.

It’s essentially giving them a slightly stronger version of engineer’s old healing bombs but on the last strike of the chain.

You don’t have a mindless auto-attack, and you have an actual attack chain befitting a hybrid weapon.

I’d be happy enough if they’d just made the staff 1 a 600 or 900 range projectile with support like bouncing to give regen or protection on an ally, which would give core Guardian another ranged weapon and solves the WvW problem of attacking through gates in one fell swoop. Right now, with 300 range I can’t even place down Line of Warding and attack from behind it.. I just get melee’d through my own ward because I can’t attack from a safe distance!

Well, just realised in a casual PvE session that my ‘allround’ guardian weapon has been reduced to total trash by suddenly being turned into a pretty bad melee weapon. I suppose casual play style is not appreciated or desired. Guess EotM zergs will not get much swiftness from guardians anymore either. I wonder why they did it. The staff sure did not feel overpowered and the 600-range was also not enormous. This is not a nerf. This is a complete change to a weapon. (Wiki-description: Staff — Supportive weapon with mid range AoE attacks, healing and boons.) Supporting from melee range…? Seriously, Anet…

OK I’ve bought the HoT + PoF expansion combo after years of holding out on the base game.

Having tried revenant, I still want to play classic guardian…

Can the staff 1 nerf be please undone now ?

I still havent heared a logical explanation for this nerf. The patch notes werent really usefull. There is only stated its increase in its effect degree to 110° to “better line up with its effect”.
Was it just nerfed to give guardian no viable option to tag anymore? I would like to hear a answer from Anet please.

I still want an explanation from Anet for this nerf.

Staff was mostly support, staff 1 didn’t cleave like sword, gs, hammer, mace. Staff 1 didn’t make more damage than scepter or bow.

Staff 1 was bad but our only small aoe sustains medium range we had on our weapon set.

Almost all other classes have big aoe damage on long or medium range.

Jourdelune.7456:

I still want an explanation from Anet for this nerf.

You kidding? We know the exact reason for the Nerf, to prevent a power creep particularly in WvW.

I played Firebrand well enough to know exactly how powerful it is. I’d even use it in SPvP because of F1 and sustains alone if it wasn’t for the range Nerf. It still may be a strong, damaging and support, 2-hander utility weaoon. I just have to see if it’s stronger than a 1-hander/offhand replacement.

Saiyan.1704:

Jourdelune.7456:

I still want an explanation from Anet for this nerf.

You kidding? We know the exact reason for the Nerf, to prevent a power creep particularly in WvW.

I played Firebrand well enough to know exactly how powerful it is. I’d even use it in SPvP because of F1 and sustains alone if it wasn’t for the range Nerf. It still may be a strong, damaging and support, 2-hander utility weaoon. I just have to see if it’s stronger than a 1-hander/offhand replacement.

Powercreep is becoming an empty buzzword nowadays. If anything, the condi staff build is worse with FB, since the ToJ passive is garbage.

You wanna know why staff was nerfed? Because Firebrand has a 600-range cone auto in Tome of Justice, which you can keep recharging with the Radiance minor.

It’s about selling the new product, don’t act like firebrand would break staff.

RabbitUp.8294:

Saiyan.1704:

Jourdelune.7456:

I still want an explanation from Anet for this nerf.

You kidding? We know the exact reason for the Nerf, to prevent a power creep particularly in WvW.

I played Firebrand well enough to know exactly how powerful it is. I’d even use it in SPvP because of F1 and sustains alone if it wasn’t for the range Nerf. It still may be a strong, damaging and support, 2-hander utility weaoon. I just have to see if it’s stronger than a 1-hander/offhand replacement.

Powercreep is becoming an empty buzzword nowadays. If anything, the condi staff build is worse with FB, since the ToJ passive is garbage.

You wanna know why staff was nerfed? Because Firebrand has a 600-range cone auto in Tome of Justice, which you can keep recharging with the Radiance minor.

It’s about selling the new product, don’t act like firebrand would break staff.

That’d be true if it made sense. They didn’t nerf GS#2-Whirl Wind because Procession of Blade’s was the same practical mechanic and had to be better in order to have a stronger selling product.

Never said I agreed with it. I’m just saying we all know why Anet did it and it wasn’t because of some marketing scheme.

If Staff 1 is such a huge nuisance in PvP and WvW why not split the skill, then? Staff is a great support weapon for these two modes already but in open world PvE it’s just too weak (outside of the lootstick niche)