Guild Wars 2

Guardian staff has unparalleled group support and a huge AoE cone, that can apply heavy pressure against a whole team of enemy opponents. This is seen and utilized in WvW but never utilized in sPVP.

Cause it sucks…..Why does it suck?

There is no burst damage or any special mechanics that make it difficult to play against, and we are often better off going for single target melee dps to down someone instead of trying to utilize our built in AoE.

Is staff too slow? Should it hit harder? Does the orb need to be fixed so it is not so buggy and maybe track targets? Should it heal better even without healing power? Empower not enough? Line of Warding easily avoided?

What is missing from staff that it isn’t seeing much play outside of mostly ignored bunker builds now?

Personally I hate staff. Yet I see how great a tool it can be in WvW, so why does it fall so flat in sPvP?

If anyone picks staff it is done and a cleric build, but how would you utilize the AoE pressure in a dps build? Can you think of feasible play builds or would staff need buffing/tweeking to make it effective?

Thoughts?

I only have two problems:

1. #1 doesn’t tilt to target. This is extremely dumb.
2. #2 actually hits hard for a low cooldown weapon skill, but it’s unreliable because of the dumb bug that hasn’t been fixed since forever.

This is still a perspective from a Hybrid Bunker/DPS/Support WvW-er. I would use staff occasionally if these two problems didn’t exist.

I have been saying since launch they should do the following

1: Swap number 1 & 2 on the bar.

2: Put wave of wrath on a 4-5 second cool down but increase it’s damage by say 3 times.

#3: Remove the detonate from the orb & instead have it heal allies it passes nearby for a small/moderate amount.

#4: Add some type of vertical sense to the orb so it doesn’t glitch out.

After that staff becomes a somewhat decent ranged option while maintaining support (albeit slow like scepter) & the cleave tagging is still there so everyone is happy.

Your number 3 seems like a doable thing Ragnar. The new revenant skill that creates a line and pulls enemies into that line could translate into similar code for the orb flying down a line and healing allies in vicinity of the line.

The lack of vertical targeting is one I forgot, that you both pointed out, good call.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

I have been saying since launch they should do the following

1: Swap number 1 & 2 on the bar.

2: Put wave of wrath on a 4-5 second cool down but increase it’s damage by say 3 times.

#3: Remove the detonate from the orb & instead have it heal allies it passes nearby for a small/moderate amount.

#4: Add some type of vertical sense to the orb so it doesn’t glitch out.

After that staff becomes a somewhat decent ranged option while maintaining support (albeit slow like scepter) & the cleave tagging is still there so everyone is happy.

I <3 my loot stick though… please don’t take that away! ;b

I find staff works best when together with another staff meditation guardian. You can both put down the symbol for swiftness, use empower and then just run train over whatever. I use sword/f for my bulk of damage but really it can be whatever you are most comfortable with. Staff does pretty good damage too when two guardians are spamming it with 24 stacks of might.

But for “competitive” play in spvp, do you think it could ever have a slot as an offensive area pressure weapon? With or without revisions to the weapon skills?

Jerus.4350:

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

I have been saying since launch they should do the following

1: Swap number 1 & 2 on the bar.

2: Put wave of wrath on a 4-5 second cool down but increase it’s damage by say 3 times.

#3: Remove the detonate from the orb & instead have it heal allies it passes nearby for a small/moderate amount.

#4: Add some type of vertical sense to the orb so it doesn’t glitch out.

After that staff becomes a somewhat decent ranged option while maintaining support (albeit slow like scepter) & the cleave tagging is still there so everyone is happy.

I <3 my loot stick though… please don’t take that away! ;b

It wouldn’t effect AOE tagging at all really.

It would be on a 4 second CD (almost 3 with trait) but hit several times harder.

That would mean you could tag cleave with a single hit but also have ranged

CMF.5461:

But for “competitive” play in spvp, do you think it could ever have a slot as an offensive area pressure weapon? With or without revisions to the weapon skills?

As an offensive weapon ? Heck no. It just has too much support tied onto it and the main two attacks don’t do enough damage.

Staffs aren’t used in PvP?

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

I have been saying since launch they should do the following

1: Swap number 1 & 2 on the bar.

2: Put wave of wrath on a 4-5 second cool down but increase it’s damage by say 3 times.

#3: Remove the detonate from the orb & instead have it heal allies it passes nearby for a small/moderate amount.

#4: Add some type of vertical sense to the orb so it doesn’t glitch out.

After that staff becomes a somewhat decent ranged option while maintaining support (albeit slow like scepter) & the cleave tagging is still there so everyone is happy.

1. #1 shouldn’t even be swapped with #2, it should just get deleted and replaced with something else. I think the trident’s #1 skill would’ve been much more appropriate to the staff than that farming tool.

3. Consistently hitting the orb’s healing would be extremely difficult without detonation, it just travels too slowly and has too long of a cast time to be aimed without the detonation. ANet really needs to add in ally targeting in the expansion (even then it’d be difficult to hit without the detonation).

Skill #2 Should just be changed to an area targeted skill shot with the option to detonate it early.

Skill #5 Might need 3/4s cast time.

It doesn’t suck all that much. The cone goes through walls, allowing for some clever LoS abuse. The #2 hits for alright damage. Group support is huge, plus 12 stacks of might allow for some heavy burst setup. Permanent Swiftness. Line of Warding can be invaluable.

Staff’s #1 does nearly the same damage as Scepter’s #1, but is much easier to hit with.

YuiRS.8129:

Staff’s #1 does nearly the same damage as Scepter’s #1, but is much easier to hit with.

Its also slower to cast, has more of an after cast & has a 600 range where as scepter has 1200.

The only thing it does well is cleave tag things after you hit them a few times

Personally… I’d like to have #2 changed so it actually follows your target and would be slightly faster. Or detonate on a larger radius. It can already crit nicely, if it hits, but hitting anything that actually moves is a pain.
Oh and have #5 cast time reduced. That 1 second always feels like an eternity

I use Staff/Hammer exclusively as part of my Meditation build. I find it to be far superior in every way to Scepter/focus.

-The auto does the exact same dmg as scepter while also going through walls, can’t be strafe-dodged and is AoE.

-Orb of light hits like a truck and is on an incredibly low cd. I’ve hit heavy-armored targets for 2600 and light-armored for 4k(spvp). Obviously I NEVER detonate it unless I know the extra dmg will finish off my opponent.

-Every spvp match i’m in, I never run out of swiftness. This is due to proper placement when fighting your enemy. Same goes for Empower which helps to setup your burst even further.

-The line of warding I feel, is stronger than a single-target immobilize. Can’t tell you how many times I’ve stopped a stomp animation by placing the line directly in front of an enemy thus forcing the KD. Just one example of course.

-

If you have some Gold to spare, Rune of strength, +4 in Virtues + 2h weapon specialization = permanent 12 might stacks.

Add boon duration food, and you will be the most overpowered front line and support hybrid in the game.

Full PTV with some zerk in the mix for the extra spice.

Who ever said staff was bad?

CMF.5461:

But for “competitive” play in spvp, do you think it could ever have a slot as an offensive area pressure weapon? With or without revisions to the weapon skills?

Generally, I find that AoE attacks are toned down offensively for PVP because of their potential to do too much damage on zergs if they didn’t. It’s too bad because that’s a great way to discourage zerg PVP but that’s a different discussion. I don’t think we will see any offensive capability added to staff anytime soon for this same reason. I do wish the skills were not so cumbersome to use, otherwise it might see more use as some people have mentioned.

Well when you watch strong PvP team fights, the stronger point AOE team tends to win out. By pressuring a point with wells, grenades, arrow barrages, meteor showers, and null fields/choas storms.

That leaves out warrior, thief, and guardian for the most part (thief and war have some range aoe ability but nothing I fear overly too much).

Guardian’s ranged “aoe” is smite which is a strike for strike hit that has reduced damage with more targets in area or, staff.

Thief can spam some poison fields and cluster bomb damage to help contribute. But are limited by initiative somewhat.

Warriors have combustive shot and arcing arrow that help provide burst/might for everyone else but then they don’t have much.

So like warriors, guardian can at most get off an empower and a symbol/staff auto attack to help the aoe point combat, but they are not contributing very much past that.

Notice it is the two heavies that are supposed to be melee oriented? I guess that is by design. After that analysis I guess I am “ok” with the lack of AOE pressure we put out for those point fights…..we do have books though, which are perfect for that……just that cast time and cooldown though, it could work a bit smoother.

One of the main problems I have with staff is symbol of swiftness.

Unless someone else is applying swiftness effects in addition to it you must stand still inside it to keep permanent swiftness uptime.

This effectively negates the purpose of swiftness which is to move from point A to point B faster.

I think if they were to cut the number of pulses in half but double the swiftness applied & damage done per pulse it would be great.

But..staff is part of the bunker guard build. Some may say it fell off meta but it’s still strong.

Just to re-emphasize, I was talking about staff in a damage oriented perspective as area pressure through offensive capability.

I think you would need to look into it as a symbol vuln spam in an offensive build and be more into conditions. Conditions can just be cover for doom with zerker but if your going this route I think you can do better. As for Empower, the staff, and straight out dps… just isn’t going to happen.

Maybe a nice bursty condition based attack with scepter, torch and staff with 2x poison and a couple low cd crit cover sigils but than you should maybe consider the sword and blind route.

The problem with conditions and staff is that majority of condition sigils are single target, and staff’s “strength” is multi target, so you would want a multi target sigil which will be torment on crit, and bleed on swap.

torment by itself will not stack high enough to matter, bleed on swap defeats the idea of area denial through ae pressure cause you have to swap in and out of staff to maintain the bleed and 3-6 bleeds by themselves are….meh?

Vulnerability on symbol is a nice idea to utilize but at most you get 4-5 stacks of vuln on targets in symbol (if they even bother to stay in symbol) and a long cooldown before you can symbol again on staff.

The auto attack is great (sans effective damage) and the orb fire is decent (except slow and buggy, so unreliable)

The idea of staff as an area denial/pressure weapon is nice, but it just is not/will not happening. I mostly wanted to bring up the idea and discuss it to bring attention to the lack of effectiveness it has which could encourage adjustments in the future. Instead of being satisfied with it providing might as a support weapon and mindlessly tagging zerg ae pve loot bags, it develop into an effective area weapons for either support and/or offense.

Ragnar the Rock.3174:

One of the main problems I have with staff is symbol of swiftness.

Unless someone else is applying swiftness effects in addition to it you must stand still inside it to keep permanent swiftness uptime.

This effectively negates the purpose of swiftness which is to move from point A to point B faster.

I think if they were to cut the number of pulses in half but double the swiftness applied & damage done per pulse it would be great.

You only need to stand inside a symbol for a second if you’ve got Runes of the Pack on. The amount of Swiftness you get from just 2-3 ticks is usually enough to get to a point and then you will stack a huge amount of Swiftness while fighting so you never run out. Remember to place the symbol on downed targets so you get the buffs while stomping. I’ve had about 1 minute of swiftness stacked up in some matches doing just that.

I still don’t think this is a GREAT idea but my thought of best using it is little different than your describing. The idea would be on point you would be in scepter/torch and as someone comes in you hit them with zealot fire, chains, and smite and than to cover your immob/burn and keep them in the smite would swap to staff and put a symbol on them, knock them down with 5 on top of them while trapped than cast staff 2. On staff i was thinking of maybe doom/earth or something so you would be proc’ing vuln on symbol and bleed on crit on 2 sec cd.

So the idea is not that the vulnerability (stacks) matter much for dps but you are trying to have a stream of contant procs to cover your immob/smite/symbol/long burn/doom trap.

CMF.5461:

This is seen and utilized in WvW but never utilized in sPVP.

Cause it sucks…..Why does it suck?

Staff doesn’t suck. It’s actually pretty good.

The problem is that support guardian builds just don’t work in sPvP right now.

Exedore.6320:

CMF.5461:

This is seen and utilized in WvW but never utilized in sPVP.

Cause it sucks…..Why does it suck?

Staff doesn’t suck. It’s actually pretty good.

The problem is that support guardian builds just don’t work in sPvP right now.

Instead of cherry picking, go back and reread original intent of conversation. Not talking about support but area pressure denial, specifically for sPvP point team fighting through damage, not support.

I would think to expand staff for area controls, it would have to be more condition focused than boon focused. Basically, would have to change some lesser used skill to AOE immobilize or knockback … but those aren’t really damage so, not sure what it could be in terms of current game abilities.

I like the idea of traps … an effect that triggers based on some enemy action over a large area. Of course, it would be called traps for Guardians as Rangers already have that class element.

For the longest time I wanted the orb explosion to be changed into something useful. E.g. using the orb again makes it stop in the air and float there for 20-30 seconds. Any ally who touches it is healed, any enemy suffers damage. It would benefit now obsolete bunker guards and even DPS guards, making them able to hold a point more effectively if they have to.

Staff is fine other things are broken in regards to spvp right now and A-net needs to fix them not buff other things. We have come to the ridiculous point in this game when some people think it’s balanced to be able to bunker and support and do damage. Nerf Ele and Engineer plz.