Guild Wars 2

I’ve been tinkering with the idea of a Staff/X build, with Staff being the primary weapon. Every place I see that, though, is a glass cannon build or just an afterthought weapon. Is it impossible to focus on it? Should I just relegate it to backup when my cooldowns are all blown?

It’s a kiter’s weapon. It works well if you use your signets or spirit hammer. For melee attackers, cast Line of Warding after you knock them down, and dance back and forth over it, and keep your speed up with the symbol.

Orb of Light hits hard, just make sure you’re close enough so it connects, and don’t detonate it. You’ll be able to cast Orb of Light continuously if you’re close range and have the two-handed 20% reduced cooldown trait.

Use a hammer or a scepter and shield as a backup and knock them away with Banish or Shield of Absorption if they get close, then immobile with Zealot’s Embrace or Chains of Light.

edit:

I don’t use it much, because I have an aggressive playstyle don’t like constantly “running away.” Most guardians I see with the staff are tag teaming with a thief and giving them loads of might.

I see. So basically, it probably SHOULD be a support/utility weapon unless I want to tailor a bunch of things to it. :< That’s what I was afraid of.

Honestly I just really like the autoattack. Especially on Norn.

You don’t have to glass cannon, you can bunker up with staff. I’m using Staff/Shouts in WvWvW – http://www.gw2db.com/skills/calc/guardian#5|0|3527|3410|1308|12645|4501|0|0|0|0|10|2278|0|0|30|2281|2175|1395|30|866|2274|884|0|0|0|0|0|0|5|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|0|

I think the staff really shines in WvWvW if you prefer a back seat role, it’s absolutely awesome for keep defence. You can spec akin to the Crithammer variants, with Altruistic Healing and Empowering Might, in a crowd of people your Empower will heal you fully whilst granting them a decent stack of might and giving off a worthwhile heal at the end.

Wave of Wrath fires through doors and combined with Wall of Reflection you can stand there for ages killing people on the other side since you’re getting healed through your crits and rotating Empower will keep you up indefinitely – quite often I can drive them away from hitting the gates all by myself.

Symbol of Swiftness you can fire off in a smale scale scuffle whilst being sat back away from it to give your team some speed for a bit of extra mobility.

Even though Orb of Light has a decent range it’s only of use up close and personal, to be fair I very rarely use it as I’m generally about 300 away at the rear of my front line.

Line of Warding I use to block doors when sieging, they are usually too occupied trying to get through the door to dodge through it but it’s best to try and time it right so they bump into it regardless, also it’s great for stopping people running away from team-mates just don’t put it up too early so they can see it and dodge through it.

I can see how the staff can be used offensively but I enjoy it more used defensively – with my spec when I pull a Hammer out I’m Crithammer anyway so I use that for offence.

Not viable in any form of pvp. Staff is for Might buff and Swiftness since it’s nerf back in beta. If you want a RDPS class roll a new character.

Staff damage has never been that impressive to me, and with that said if you get agroo and lose aegis, there goes one of the ways to pump the damage up.

Nevertheless, I use it, but not as a means to do significant damage but as an additional support mechanism for grps I’m in.

How? I run full clerics set and run a spec of; 0/0/30/30/10. Use Altrustic Healing and All Symbols Healing tactics and it works out ~ok. My 2nd set of weapons is mace/sheild.

This gives me 2 means to cure conditions and heal ppl in grp with weapons selection alone. The boons that staff provides works in synergy with AH and can rapidly heal you as you channel it. However, despite this healing power scales poorly for other healing skills.

I was running 0/0/20/30/20 for the increased passive healing from resolve, but there is no doubt that AH is better for self survival. The trade off is decreased minimal decreased boon duration and the increased healing from resolve does not seem to be worth it.

I am really disappointed in the recent GS nerf, though I never used the weapon. Why? It further illustrates that beyond dps, this classes support mechanisms are not as solid as advertised.

The above is especially evident in zerg/zerg WVW. Healing power scales so poorly that its best use is in dodge rolling. I’m sorry, but that is a sad testiment. Essentially, when you have exhausted your ability to dodge and burn your Virtue of resolve your left with weak healing compared to dps in this game.

The combat mechanisms are “ok” for the tournament play, but with it comes to WVW, it falls flat and our passive healing with a clerics set demonstrates this.

This game is ok, but I don’t see me hanging around because support and mitigation is subpar. I don’t even think that replacing sheild with focus will help that much.