Guild Wars 2

Has anyone created a guardian that used a staff as a main weapon? The idea of a staff guardian seems really cool, but I’m curious about it’s effectiveness in PVE.

Staff is bad, if you compelled to use staff then use it as a switch weapon with greatsword or sword/focus. But using just staff will make you bring very little utility as well as very little damage to the group.

Staff has some support potential, it gives 12 might stack to allies, and if you have boons you apply heal you talent then it will heal you for around 7k at base as its a total of 60 boons. Now to use it as a main weapon is a very bad idea, guardians can trow out bout 5 aoe blinds in a row with F1 and 3 diffrent weapon skills (f1 refreshes very fast) in melee range, so their best support is done at melee. Not to mention the staff damage is beyond horrible, while you do increase party damage you are bringing almost no damage your self. A hammer auto attack will do more support then staff too, mace also better support weapon.

The effectiveness of a staff guardian in PvE is about as great as the effectiveness of no player at all. The only reason for using that weapon is tagging lootbags in temple zergs or PvD.

I would only use staff as a secondary support weapon with either greatsword… or sword and focus. I love sword/focus and greatsword as primary. Sceptor and focus for range. Staff only comes out when I see my team is struggling and I need to be the support. Like if we wiped at a boss. Staff is terrible dps. Really, it does nothing. It’s more to keep the team alive and be a support.

Ok, thank you so much for the info. I will go sword/focus and scepter/focus.

I should ask, what is your end game content? Sceptor and focus is very fun for me.. but if you are soloing mostly.. greatsword is great because it clears out mob very quickly. Use 2 and 4 and pretty much wipes everyone out. Sceptor and focus is great for large bosses that don’t move around too much. If you are thinking about doing dungeon or fractals, I would recommend that you use get sword, focus, gs, sceptor, hammer and learn how to switch.

All that said, some neat things start to happen when you have excessive boon duration. If you can get your Might duration to above about 80% (with Two Handed Mastery; 100% without) you can run 12 stacks of might basically forever using Empower. The idea being that you start a fight with the Staff up, Empower, swap to your DPS weapon, and then when your weapon swap timer dings you hit up the staff for more Might again if the fight is still going.

The trouble is that that’s really not terribly effective if you’ve already got a party capable of stacking a lot of might. But 12 stacks does translate to about a 30-odd percent damage boost. So that’s pretty neat. There just aren’t many encounters where it’s actually particularly needed, over just plain having a better DPS weapon.

foofad.5162:

But 12 stacks does translate to about a 30-odd percent damage boost. So that’s pretty neat.

Not even close, unless you take crap like giver gear for granted. It’s rather 12-14%.

I ran the greatsword/staff for a long time and I have to agree, the empowering might isn’t that great. I use to use EM and switch over to gs.. and the cool down to switch wasn’t worth it. I do think it’s better to use sword and focus for dps.. it’s more effective. If we are speaking strictly from faster kill perspective. Staff has its use at times.. but I use it less and less. Only for group survivality or to tag.

Staff is great for farming, bad for organized play (i.e., dungeons) unless used for utility to back up Sword/Focus or GS. But Guards who main staff are tantamount to Bearbow Rangers, in my opinion, and should be kicked from any and all parties with extreme prejudice.

oh god no, staff is used for LoS might stacking swiftness and general dungeon running, it’s a utility weapon definitely not a main hand weapon

CptAurellian.9537:

foofad.5162:

But 12 stacks does translate to about a 30-odd percent damage boost. So that’s pretty neat.

Not even close, unless you take crap like giver gear for granted. It’s rather 12-14%.

Damage boost over base I mean. Which, it’s actually 40-odd percent over rather than 30. On a two handed weapon with a 1.0 coefficient skill it’s roughly 162 damage more per hit against a 2600 armor target. The ratio of additional damage added by might to how much your starting damage was decreases as your starting damage increases, so you get less proportional benefit as your starting damage increases, but it’s still quite a good boost of damage.

For example on a coefficient of 1, a beefy 2500 power character gets 961 damage. With 12 stacks of might that goes up to 1123. Proportionally that’s only a 17% increase before crits. The more crit chance/damage/modifiers you have, the wider the gulf. But it’s still a difference of 162. Which, I mean, even at 17% a constant party-wide boost like that is very nice… unless someone else can do it. And you miss out on having a burst weapon swap and yadda yadda everything has already been said on that.

I would never advocate sitting on the staff in combat; you’d preferably never swap back to it after the fighting started due to the DPS drain. But carring a staff with you on a 20/25/0/0/25 GS build isn’t the worst idea.

Like everything else, it depends on what kind of build you’re running and what you want to get out of the class. I’ve just returned after having been away for a while, so hopefully everything I say is still current.

I run a 0/0/30/30/10 staff/hammer guardian and absolutely love it. Writ of the Merciful + Writ of Exaltation mean that Staff #3 and hammer auto 3 are bigger, heal as well as grant boons, and heal me due to AH. I use Empower and then swap to Hammer with Superior Sigil of Battle for 15 stacks of Might (and I can push it higher, at the expense of Shouts and Virtues). Line of Warding is great; there are few things more satisfying than slamming it down in front of a door in WvW for easy kills. I would like to see a detonated Orb of Light inflict Blind, but other than that, I wouldn’t change it.

I think Sword and Staff take very different approaches to the class. The more likely you are to use the one, the less likely you are to use the other. I rarely use Sword, and even Greatsword doesn’t get as much use from me as Mace/Torch.