Guild Wars 2

This skill kind of seems like the main reason the staff is just a “Switch to it, blow all your abilities, switch out” kind of weapon. It really just doesn’t fit at all with the rest of the weapon and is probably one of the most misplaced skills in the game.
Looking at its skills (with the exception of Wave of Wrath), the staff is mostly a long-ranged buffing/healing support weapon; why is its auto-attack a medium-ranged cone that doesn’t even have a healing ratio attached (which is typically a support guardian’s primary attribute)? It also just holds little supportive value in general.

Personally I would change it to make it something more like the trident’s autoattack (or Ele’s water staff #1), or at least give it some healing and longer range (perhaps with a narrower cone).
I very much enjoy using a staff, I just wish I could enjoy it for longer before I have to switch just because its auto-attack is so meh.

Also, semi-unrelated, but orb of light’s detonation cooldown is way too long for the healing it offers, and when is that kitten orb-getting-stuck glitch going to be fixed? It’s been like that for ages… >_>;

I would admit that the staff as a whole isn’t amazing. But what it does offer is some nice control/boons. With regards to the auto-attack – it is the ultimate WvWvW skill. If you are zerg training (not something I encourage) you can tag everything with a pulse and reap the benefits. Its meant to offer a little widespread damage to a weapon that is otherwise support focused.

How dare you suggest ideas that would end up being a buff. This is the Guardian forums, and all we get are nerfs or worthless skills. I demand you change your ideas this very moment to reflect the Guardian class!!!

Don’t forget tooltip corrections.

Perikittenor.1892:

How dare you suggest ideas that would end up being a buff. This is the Guardian forums, and all we get are nerfs or worthless skills. I demand you change your ideas this very moment to reflect the Guardian class!!!

Yeah, you’re right. Sorry, forgot my place. :p

Lonewolf Kai.3682:

Don’t forget tooltip corrections.

Very ironic considering that a lot of the tooltips are still wrong or misleading. :>

I like the idea of making it comparable to trident, at least in turn of doing something other than damage. The damage isn’t stellar, but it doesn’t need more damage, necessarily. Just give it something more. Maybe a minor heal or a % chance to cure a condition or something.

considering that it shines so brightly, i propose the auto attack do AOE blinds!!!!!! YEAAAA

Are you serious?!

Staff auto-attack is the best thing you can get for WvW Zerging stuff.
If you really wanne use this in PvE and playing a “healing” Guard, someone should punch you in your face. oO

Look at this DPS-Meta threads, there is a reason for this threads.

Don’t mock the TA Lawnmower.

Dante.8456:

I would admit that the staff as a whole isn’t amazing. But what it does offer is some nice control/boons. With regards to the auto-attack – it is the ultimate WvWvW skill. If you are zerg training (not something I encourage) you can tag everything with a pulse and reap the benefits. Its meant to offer a little widespread damage to a weapon that is otherwise support focused.

Yes, staff is mediocre as hell. It’s only probably the best over-all spvp and WvWvW weapon a Guardian had for most of the builds that are actually effective. Otherwise its complete garbage. We all know the only thing really important in this game is fractal grinding. Semi-apology for all the sarcasm I am ladling on but seriously this game is much more then about pve for many people. Staff is a pvp weapon and it is awesome there.

Actually pvp is where I like Wave of Wrath the least. >_>;

Thorwyn.8469:

Look at this DPS-Meta threads, there is a reason for this threads.

Oh, you mean that meta that’s about to be changed?

Phadde.7362:

Don’t mock the TA Lawnmower.

AHAHAHAHAHHHHHHAAAA

I would love it if the leave staff just as it is and just introduce a whole new weapon if they have more ideas. Most often, things that are changed end up worse, or a lot better for a month before being nerfed into the ground. Just leave staff alone.

timidobserver.7925:

I would love it if the leave staff just as it is and just introduce a whole new weapon if they have more ideas. Most often, things that are changed end up worse, or a lot better for a month before being nerfed into the ground. Just leave staff alone.

Well that’s a possibility, but whether it’s balanced or not is up to the competence of the design team. Even if they introduce a new weapon, I still think Wave of Wrath is misplaced on the staff. :>

Attaching a 75~100 heal to the autoattack would be neat.

And on a side note, Symbol of Swiftness is an ability that requires you to stand still to run faster. You can get permanent Swiftness….if you don’t use it.

Maybe they should have left the frontloaded Swiftness on and attached a 2~3s Vigor to first tick as well, or something.

The staff is a WvW weapon. And it will remain such unless there are huge changes. Four of the five skills work well in WvW.

1. Great for tagging in a zerg, and spreading the love
2. Kinda meh
3. Great of stacking swiftness before the zerg starts to move out. We replaced the Static Field blast with these, so that they might actually be used when needed instead of for stacking swiftness.
4. Great for stacking might before we hit the other zerg.
5. Throw it down and watch the people who forgot to use stability fall on there kitten.

There are only a couple of places I will use a staff in PvE. TA is one for the plants, and CoE for smashing those little bomb golems, if there are others I can’t think of them atm. Nothing makes me more sad then watching a PuG guard using a staff full time to spam 1 on a PvE boss. The damage will always be terrible, regardless of Armor set Other then that I stick with my sword/focus and greatsword in pve

The damage on 2 is actually pretty decent. Mixing it in between the other staff skills is a good idea imo. It’d be amazing with a lowered cooldown (and the detonate healing for more).

I use staff for TA and coe, that’s about it, the damage is bad no matter which way you build armor/gear/trait wise

Phadde.7362:

Don’t mock the TA Lawnmower.

LOL
I think I might love you.

I like how we got WoP hammer buff, which was like the third biggest direct DPS buff to any profession in this game’s history (first being engineers getting stats on kits, then elementalists getting +1 tick on Lava Font) and people just whine about not getting enough buffs.

We could be warriors and just getting constant DPS nerfs since launch, stop whining.

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

I like how we got WoP hammer buff, which was like the third biggest direct DPS buff to any profession in this game’s history (first being engineers getting stats on kits, then elementalists getting +1 tick on Lava Font) and people just whine about not getting enough buffs.

Are you implying that elementalists are actually good right now?

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

We could be warriors and just getting constant DPS nerfs since launch, stop whining.

Are you implying that warriors aren’t actually overpowered right now?

Is being concerned about the balance of skills what you’d consider to be “whining”?

I think the staff is fine. Having a heal on that AA is not something I would object to by any means.

Fashion Mage.3712:

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

I like how we got WoP hammer buff, which was like the third biggest direct DPS buff to any profession in this game’s history (first being engineers getting stats on kits, then elementalists getting +1 tick on Lava Font) and people just whine about not getting enough buffs.

Are you implying that elementalists are actually good right now?

Guanglai Kangyi.4318:

We could be warriors and just getting constant DPS nerfs since launch, stop whining.

Are you implying that warriors aren’t actually overpowered right now?

Is being concerned about the balance of skills what you’d consider to be “whining”?

he’s talking about PVE where elementalists are king and warriors are buffbots.

guanlongwucaii.3162:

he’s talking about PVE where elementalists are king and warriors are buffbots.

Thanks for the clarification. Why is it that PvE is the assumed mode when discussing things here? Or at least, that’s how it is as far as I’m aware of. :p

Fashion Mage.3712:

guanlongwucaii.3162:

he’s talking about PVE where elementalists are king and warriors are buffbots.

Thanks for the clarification. Why is it that PvE is the assumed mode when discussing things here? Or at least, that’s how it is as far as I’m aware of. :p

it’s guanglaikangyi, he is almost definitely talking about PVE.

most people do tend to specify whichever gamemodes they’re talking about so as to prevent confusion.

I feel the staff AA should knock back enemies to make up for its low fire rate and damage. In addition, orb of light should knock down all foes hit by the detonation for 2 seconds. These changes would be very fair and balanced and allow the guardians staff to be balanced to the standards of other staves in the game.
/sarcasm
But seriously, I would like to see the staff AA have some sort of fire rate increase. Also, it would be a very cool play style if, say, The 5 skill have regen or protection when walked through, and the staff AA healed a relatively reasonable amount on every ally hit, and yourself.

sierras.6297:

I feel the staff AA should knock back enemies to make up for its low fire rate and damage. In addition, orb of light should knock down all foes hit by the detonation for 2 seconds. These changes would be very fair and balanced and allow the guardians staff to be balanced to the standards of other staves in the game.

That’s a good start, but it should also be such that it can’t be evaded, blinded, or blocked. Oh, and stability shouldn’t work against it. That would make staff pretty good.

We should submit these reasonable requests to the developers.

I love staff AA. It’s amazing in WvW, situationally useful in PvE – if your personal goal isn’t to kill things fast – and it’s a huge AoE attack that we can spam with impunity.

By the way, I’m suprized nobody has remarked how uber it is in a crit-build. I can crit for 2K with this skill on 5 enemies over and over while moving. With the occasional 3K orb of light. Yum yum!

A tiny little utility added to this might be a nice touch though, like a very small heal (40-60) on 5 allies in the wave. Not overpowered and allows us to enjoy feeling useful while spamming this.

I love the AA as is, changing it to something like the spear would completely destroy it. It’s not a single target weapon and it’s fine as is. A lot of people mentioned how great it is in WvW but with the right build it can be amazing.

With 15 in radiance you can spam VoJ over and over, burning and blinding enemies. If traited with Inspired Virtues you get 3 stacks of might for allies per VoJ. Double that with AH and you can faceroll through zergs with zerk gear getting 2k crits on multiple foes. Throw the symbol down and empower for even more healing/boons.

The one skill I don’t like on staff that needs a rework is orb of light. I’d like to put a boon on it like regen to allies, or some type of boon on LoW but it would probably be unbalanced with AH.

Oh, and in PvE the staff is great for control. I always do the kiting on P1 of AC with the staff. Also great for tagging in situations like scarlet’s invasions or gates of arah.

Aedrion.6483:

By the way, I’m suprized nobody has remarked how uber it is in a crit-build. I can crit for 2K with this skill on 5 enemies over and over while moving. With the occasional 3K orb of light. Yum yum!

Just mind boggling.

I think the AA should receive a small damage bonus when it hits fewer than 5 targets. 3% increase per target under 5 for a 15% total bonus to damage if u only strike one target. No heal AA too fast. Maybea larger heal on #2 bomb. Also I love the idea of protection on 5. Fits staff builds perfectly.

I don’t think it’s an issue with how the skill functions specifically, I think it’s more the fact that it has a repeated animation for the skill, the same animation over and over.

“I blast with my staff, I blast with my staff again.”

We only notice it with this staff because our offensive cool-downs have considerable cool-downs that require us to remain auto-attack for a longer period of time. If they spiced it up a little things might be different, for example:
Animation #1: point the tip of the staff forward, blast wave comes out. (Current repeat.)
Animation #2: point the bottom of the staff forward, blast wave comes out.
Animation #3: make a sweeping motion with the staff, blast wave comes out.

All of a sudden you have a nice lively skill.

I kind of do not understand why underwater weapons are only underwater…. spear, harpoongun, trident…. they all can be used on land. There would be only different versions of skills.

Oozo.7856:

sierras.6297:

I feel the staff AA should knock back enemies to make up for its low fire rate and damage. In addition, orb of light should knock down all foes hit by the detonation for 2 seconds. These changes would be very fair and balanced and allow the guardians staff to be balanced to the standards of other staves in the game.

That’s a good start, but it should also be such that it can’t be evaded, blinded, or blocked. Oh, and stability shouldn’t work against it. That would make staff pretty good.

We should submit these reasonable requests to the developers.

To make it truly balanced, it should hit 5 times, instance proccing burn on every target, so it can synergies with the boon strip on burn trait. Also, it should grant AoE protection for 5 seconds on the fifth hit on every enemy. This would be very balanced and even.

Mortifer.2946:

I kind of do not understand why underwater weapons are only underwater…. spear, harpoongun, trident…. they all can be used on land. There would be only different versions of skills.

^This. When the game was in beta I thought “Wow, the trident and spear sure are cool, I hope they let you use them above water”. Alas, they did not.

I’d really like to use Staff/Trident for a full long-ranged squishy support build. That’d be so nice. :>

I would love to see Wave of Wrath turn into some kind of 1200-range skill. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I play staff in all of my guardian builds the way it is right now. Wave of Wrath is, by no means, a weak skill, especially with something like Fire Sigil. However, Guardian does lack range, as Scepter is a relatively weak long-range weapon in its current state. Something that shot out, say, a quick-moving bolt of light for single-target (or small AoE around the target, like Ele’s Fireball) would certainly diversify Guardian greatly.

That being said, I’d also like to see the Symbol of Swiftness buffed back up… 4s is just way too short.