Guild Wars 2

Staff 1- range 900 and more visible effect.

Staff 3- increase the radius to like 300 or 360.

Staff 4- remove the root.

Thank you for reading the suggestions, I really appreciate it! Have a great day!

I’m not disagreeing with your suggestions, but why is it you think these skills should be changed as such? Imo, to better make the staff a team support weapon, the only one of these changes I’d really like is the change to #4. Other changes should focus on staff 1 and staff 2 as they’re some of the most underwhelming weapon skills in the game and don’t really work well for either support or damage.

Arcaedus.7290:

I’m not disagreeing with your suggestions, but why is it you think these skills should be changed as such? Imo, to better make the staff a team support weapon, the only one of these changes I’d really like is the change to #4. Other changes should focus on staff 1 and staff 2 as they’re some of the most underwhelming weapon skills in the game and don’t really work well for either support or damage.

Don’t even think about doing anything to our lootstick. >:(

Chingiz.9167:

Arcaedus.7290:

I’m not disagreeing with your suggestions, but why is it you think these skills should be changed as such? Imo, to better make the staff a team support weapon, the only one of these changes I’d really like is the change to #4. Other changes should focus on staff 1 and staff 2 as they’re some of the most underwhelming weapon skills in the game and don’t really work well for either support or damage.

Don’t even think about doing anything to our lootstick. >:(

I was thinking it could also heal allies! The fact that it’s an excellent loot stick in wvw is NOT enough of a reason to not buff it. The loot stick property should be a side effect, or a fringe benefit if you will.

I like my original idea of making Staff 1 1200 range, 360 degree.

Staff is a condition weapon and does not need a buff.
It burns like a real flamethower unlike the engi one.

guildabd.6529:

Staff is a condition weapon and does not need a buff.
It burns like a real flamethower unlike the engi one.

makes sense since engie has no staff :|

Here are my suggestions for staff:

Staff 1 – Range and damage stays as is. But if it hits an enemy or ally, it applies a special debuff; let’s called it “radiance”. Radiance causes all enemies to take 5% additional damage and allies to take 5% less damage (introduce traits that improve this bonus to 10%). Stacks separately from vulnerability.

Staff 2 – Is completely reworked. Instead of firing a super slow orb that’s hard to hit allies or enemies with, it detonates the “radiance” debuff on all enemies and allies, causing burning to enemies and healing to allies.

Staff 3 – Changes from Symbol of Swiftness to Symbol of Quickness. To me it doesn’t make sense to have to stand still inside a symbol to get a movement speed buff. Instead, the symbol will give a pulsing 1 second of quickness for each tick. Increase the cooldown to 20 seconds.

Staff 4 – This skill is currently pointless thanks to the low amount of might and low uptime of might it gives. Considering other classes can maintain 25 stacks for a group quite easily, there’s literally no reason for Guardian’s to even bother. I’d change it to give aegis and swiftness to allies (similar to retreat). No longer roots.

Staff 5 – Is fine as it is.

Why would you give a single weapon its own special condition that functions exactly like an existing condition?

With 100% boon duration, you’ll be getting 12s of quickness on 16s cooldown. Permanent with FmW!.

Implying half-max stacks of Might is low

Again with 100% boon duration, you have permanent 12 might to your party. Sigil of Strength you get permanent 25 Might.

Commander Guardians would be like combining commander Chronomancers with PS warriors. Guardians are already extremely useful in raiding and wvw. Staff doesn’t have to be a requirement in pvp while overshadowing other game modes too.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Why would you give a single weapon its own special condition that functions exactly like an existing condition?

With 100% boon duration, you’ll be getting 12s of quickness on 16s cooldown. Permanent with FmW!.

Implying half-max stacks of Might is low

Again with 100% boon duration, you have permanent 12 might to your party. Sigil of Strength you get permanent 25 Might.

Commander Guardians would be like combining commander Chronomancers with PS warriors. Guardians are already extremely useful in raiding and wvw. Staff doesn’t have to be a requirement in pvp while overshadowing other game modes too.

1: Why not? Other classes get unique buffs/debuffs that overlap with the roles of existing buffs/debuffs. Warrior banners are a good example.

2: You can easily reduce pulses for symbol to reduce the amount of quickness you can get, but when you consider that mesmers can get 2 seconds of quickness with each well (which can be increased with boon duration) on top of group alacrity, it seems like a moot point.

3: It is low considering one phalanx strength warrior can get full stacks just from attacking, yet we have to stop dps to get 12 stacks for a short duration. Why must I use sigils and boon duration to get what another class gives without using either of those?

4: What about PvE? The only use for staff is to tag mobs. No-one actually uses it for its intended role, which is support. They just spam 1 all the time against trash mobs in open world events. No organized group will ever use staff in high level content over other dps options like longbow, greatsword or hammer. The only way to make it competitive and to fulfill it’s intended role is to give it support comparable to options from other classes.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Guardians are already extremely useful in raiding and wvw. Staff doesn’t have to be a requirement in pvp while overshadowing other game modes too.

Last time I checked, no, the staff isn’t used in raiding. It’s just used a lot in WvW and I don’t think WvW alone should ever determine how something is balanced, especially considering that the game mode itself is basically based on imbalance.

Arcaedus.7290:

Chingiz.9167:

Arcaedus.7290:

I’m not disagreeing with your suggestions, but why is it you think these skills should be changed as such? Imo, to better make the staff a team support weapon, the only one of these changes I’d really like is the change to #4. Other changes should focus on staff 1 and staff 2 as they’re some of the most underwhelming weapon skills in the game and don’t really work well for either support or damage.

Don’t even think about doing anything to our lootstick. >:(

I was thinking it could also heal allies! The fact that it’s an excellent loot stick in wvw is NOT enough of a reason to not buff it. The loot stick property should be a side effect, or a fringe benefit if you will.

Quite frankly, I hope they completely destroy the “lootstick” aspect of it. It really bothers me that the most supportive weapon that was on what used to be the most supportive class has an auto-attack used purely for farming. The fact that some people are actually in favour for this awful design really irritates me.

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

2: You can easily reduce pulses for symbol to reduce the amount of quickness you can get, but when you consider that mesmers can get 2 seconds of quickness with each well (which can be increased with boon duration) on top of group alacrity, it seems like a moot point.

It is not because other classes got unbalanced abilities that should get toned down that applying it to other classes is the way to go. Quickness is an extremely powerful boon that should not be that easily shared.

1) Warrior Banners do not compare to a brand new special snowflake buff only found on Guardian’s staff

2)“You can easily change whatever I say to actually be balanced instead of the unbalanced piles I suggest”

3)PS warriors only work when you have: a) a Greatsword b) the Strength line c) the specific Greatsword trait d) the Tactics line e) PS traited f) enough precision to crit consistently.

Other than the precision, Warriors are lowering their potential dps to take those options. The combo takes a lot of moving parts to work. Just because one profession has one thing, doesn’t mean another profession must have it also.

4) Guardian already has a strong pve niche. It doesn’t need an even stronger claim that’s already been filled. These changes aren’t going to affect WvW or PvP in any positive manner.

Fashion Mage.3712:

Last time I checked, no, the staff isn’t used in raiding. It’s just used a lot in WvW and I don’t think WvW alone should ever determine how something is balanced, especially considering that the game mode itself is basically based on imbalance.

No, it’s not. But those changes would make Guardian a self healing, required boon sharing, tank that could probably bring more damage than the current Mesmer offering. It already has a pretty good spot with its dps build. It doesn’t need to replace Mesmer tanks plus a large portion of Warriors in addition to that.

Ghotistyx.6942:

1) Warrior Banners do not compare to a brand new special snowflake buff only found on Guardian’s staff

2)“You can easily change whatever I say to actually be balanced instead of the unbalanced piles I suggest”

3)PS warriors only work when you have: a) a Greatsword b) the Strength line c) the specific Greatsword trait d) the Tactics line e) PS traited f) enough precision to crit consistently.

Other than the precision, Warriors are lowering their potential dps to take those options. The combo takes a lot of moving parts to work. Just because one profession has one thing, doesn’t mean another profession must have it also.

4) Guardian already has a strong pve niche. It doesn’t need an even stronger claim that’s already been filled. These changes aren’t going to affect WvW or PvP in any positive manner.

1: How do they not? They are limited only to warriors, but give buffs to stats in a manner similar to boons, despite stacking in dependently. The same would go for my suggestions for staff.

2: Of course, I am only making suggestions, I never mentioned tick counts in my suggestion (you made that assumption on your own) and obviously they’d need to be balanced properly. I’m not a balance expert though, and I’d have to leave that to the discretion of the devs.

3: PS warriors have all of that and can usually achieve 100% crit chance. Regardless of what it takes to achieve, the point is that if you have a PS warrior in your party, then staff 4 for guiardians is useless. And even if you don’t other classes like ele are still better at giving might. Why must we have skills that are completely overshadowed when we could bring something more unique to the table instead?

4: What strong PvE niche? You just say we have something but you don’t explain what it is, which makes your comment questionable at best. Guardians lose out in damage and support to other classes. We can’t give the offensive support of mesmers, revenants, warriors or eles, and even our defensive support is sub-par (revenants, for example, can have more projectile block and stability uptime than us). The only unique boon we bring to the table is aegis, and that is too weak to build around.

But if you can elaborate on one area where we equal or surpass other classes, I’d gladly hear it.

zeight.5260:

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

2: You can easily reduce pulses for symbol to reduce the amount of quickness you can get, but when you consider that mesmers can get 2 seconds of quickness with each well (which can be increased with boon duration) on top of group alacrity, it seems like a moot point.

It is not because other classes got unbalanced abilities that should get toned down that applying it to other classes is the way to go. Quickness is an extremely powerful boon that should not be that easily shared.

You are right, but other classes have enjoyed a lot of power creep since expansion and Guardians have been left behind. It’s just I don’t see ANet nerfing those other classes to any reasonable extent. The only other option in that case is to bring guardian in line.

Quickness was also not the first boon I thought of either, it was just one of the few that we weren’t getting from symbols already. I also thought of aegis, resistance and stability, but those might also be considered too strong for a symbol. Perhaps stability might be the best alternative though?

Warrior banners are a set of utility skills that fulfill particular aspects of what the Warrior profession has and can do. Putting some unique buff on Staff that has never before been seen does not correlate to the profession identity that a Banner represents. No other weapon has a buff, or even functionality, that matches that idea. It only appears on a single weapon and only interacts with two skills. It has the same functionality as an existing condition, Vulnerability, except it’s even better as it goes over the Vuln cap. It also steps on the toes of multiple Staff Guardians (I would hope you wouldn’t expect it to be stackable). One Warrior banner might equate to 5.6 stacks additional might, but that’s only one of 5 utility skills. They also cost utility slots to use, not a weapon slot. They may look similar in certain areas, but they have more dissimilarities than similarities.

As far as the PvE niche goes, Guardians are in the top end of raid dps using Hammer. They also provide Protection with that build, which makes many runs easier both in raiding and higher fractals. If needed, Guardian can also provide quite a bit of projectile defense. In WvW, the Zergs still live and die on Guardian’s stability. Rev has aoe stability, true, but no zerg is able to rely on that exclusively. The class has the opportunity to cover some useful roles, which is exactly what you want in a profession. Some may feel Guardian lacks in PvP, but updates are coming, and they will change the Guardian in PvP either directly or indirectly.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Warrior banners are a set of utility skills that fulfill particular aspects of what the Warrior profession has and can do. Putting some unique buff on Staff that has never before been seen does not correlate to the profession identity that a Banner represents. No other weapon has a buff, or even functionality, that matches that idea.

Sorry, but this is not accurate. Binding blade for Greatsword 5 has a unique debuff with a damage over time effect, which is similar to other conditions but technically doesn’t count as a condition. It is also unique to Guardian Greatsword and can be seen on no other class or skill. So you’re arguing the point that there can’t be a unique buff or debuff unique to a single weapon, even though we have an example that contradicts that idea.

Also, just because the functionality did not exist before, that doesn’t mean it cannot be added. Alacrity didn’t exist before, now it does. Resistance didn’t exist before, now it does. Why must an idea be excluded just because it’s new? It’s just an idea after all, if you think you have better alternatives then you are more than welcome to put your ideas on the table as well.

Staff 2: targeting functions like LB3, make the orb detonation a blast finisher. The CD makes it very powerful. Increase healing/cool down if it’s needed to refrain from abusing one field.

Staff 4: +1 on removing root.

I like the idea of change or two to staff, good post.

Fashion Mage.3712:

Quite frankly, I hope they completely destroy the “lootstick” aspect of it. It really bothers me that the most supportive weapon that was on what used to be the most supportive class has an auto-attack used purely for farming. The fact that some people are actually in favour for this awful design really irritates me.

If they can improve staff without doing away with the loot-sticking aspect, then they should. The fact that it can be used as a loot stick shouldn’t factor into staff’s balance at all. It’s just a benefit at this point.

That being said, a rework which makes staff an overall stronger support weapon (but removes the loot stick somehow) would be overall welcome.

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Sorry, but this is not accurate. Binding blade for Greatsword 5 has a unique debuff with a damage over time effect, which is similar to other conditions but technically doesn’t count as a condition. It is also unique to Guardian Greatsword and can be seen on no other class or skill. So you’re arguing the point that there can’t be a unique buff or debuff unique to a single weapon, even though we have an example that contradicts that idea.

Also, just because the functionality did not exist before, that doesn’t mean it cannot be added. Alacrity didn’t exist before, now it does. Resistance didn’t exist before, now it does. Why must an idea be excluded just because it’s new? It’s just an idea after all, if you think you have better alternatives then you are more than welcome to put your ideas on the table as well.

Spear of Justice does exactly what Binding Blades does, and Magnetic Leap does similar, just without the damage. When you’re first making the game you have a lot more leeway to create unique functionalities. When you’re game is already established, the answer isn’t to give Guardian Staff the equivalent of a Druid Grandmaster that requires no build up nor any other requirement then a landing very large area affecting cone. And why would you make an entirely new thing when you can just add Vulnerability for 4-5 seconds.

Speaking of Binding Blade though, they should definitely add that to more guardian skills. Applying a few seconds of the DoT would be nice on Immobilize or most Control Effects.

Ghotistyx.6942:

Spear of Justice does exactly what Binding Blades does, and Magnetic Leap does similar, just without the damage. When you’re first making the game you have a lot more leeway to create unique functionalities. When you’re game is already established, the answer isn’t to give Guardian Staff the equivalent of a Druid Grandmaster that requires no build up nor any other requirement then a landing very large area affecting cone. And why would you make an entirely new thing when you can just add Vulnerability for 4-5 seconds.

Speaking of Binding Blade though, they should definitely add that to more guardian skills. Applying a few seconds of the DoT would be nice on Immobilize or most Control Effects.

Your specific words were “no other weapon has a buff, or even functionality, that matches that idea. It only appears on a single weapon and only interacts with two skills. It has the same functionality as an existing condition, Vulnerability, except it’s even better as it goes over the Vuln cap”.

My response was showing that there are already existing, unique buffs/debuffs on weapons that overlapped the roles of existing buffs/debuffs, but were still separate. That’s all. Binding blade is to burning what my suggestion to staff would be to vulnurability, a separate debuff that acts on top of an existing condition, while still somewhat mimicking the functionality of that condition.

Also, the reason I didn’t want to just make it cause vulnerability is because in organized groups, 25 stacks of vulnerability is already being achieved easily. For staff to be viable in end game PvE, it needs to bring functionality that is a boon for the group, and the only way to do that is to give it functionality that isn’t being fulfilled yet. If I’m going to trade a large amount of dps for a pure support weapon, I’d kitten sure want that support weapon to enhance the group in such a way as to justify that dps loss (either by giving the group more dps to compensate, or by bringing greater utility).

When you consider how steep your dps loss is when switching to the staff, in all honesty, a 5% dps boost for the party is likely not even going to cover that gap. As you pointed out, even just auto attacking with hammer would bring your group more utility and damage than staff currently does. As for whether the debuff would stack with multiple staff users, the answer would be no, but then I think you wouldn’t want more than one pure staff supporter in your group either way (because like all kinds of support, including might, fury and vulnerability, you eventually hit diminishing returns).

The other problem is that groups are already getting their full might and vulnerability stacks, and they’re usually doing it without trading as much dps as a guardian would switching to staff, so adding more might and vulnerability to the staff will not help and will in fact get us nowhere. This is why I offered an alternative that makes staff a better support weapon without overlapping existing roles. It’s the ONLY way to make it viable aside from a straight up dps increase, otherwise it’s use will remain limited to WvW or being a loot stick.

In any case, it’s fine if you don’t agree with my suggestions. I’m not one to assume all my suggestions are perfect or always reasonable. But I do think it’s odd that you only ever say what’s wrong, instead of offering viable alternatives. Do you perhaps think staff is fine as is in PvE or PvP? It can certainly be argued that it fulfills a decent role in WvW, but I’m curious about your thoughts as to its use in other game modes.

What is considered “better” is dependant on how the individual views the weapon currently and the weapon ideally.

But none of this protects you from criticism. And in fact, critique gives you the opportunity to make a stronger pitch. Or you could get offended. Whichever you choose is, well, your choice.

Anyone can be a critic, but the act of criticizing in itself does not by default make your criticism correct or what you are criticizing incorrect. Also, I’m not being offended, I’m just debating, because we simply have different viewpoints. XD

Sure.

I don’t really know where is like to go for staff. There’s so many directions that could work, but I’d need access to a lot of data I don’t have in order to determine what I think would be the best choice.

Your suggestions are obviously not the direction I’d travel. I prefer to keep things as original as possible, and use tools that already exist to fix problems first.

Wave of Wrath is pretty good already. It would probably benefit from something smaller, like allied healing, and be sufficient. Orb of Light is the weakest skill. That one either needs something significant or a complete rework. Symbol of Swiftness is pretty decent. I’d increase the damage before anything else. Empower could use a little something more. A blast finisher (or three?) Would be nice along with better Hpow scaling. Line of Warding is already pretty good and doesn’t need anything added to the skill.

A lot of other changes that could affect staff or staff usage would come from other sources. Changes to traits might be a better platform to create a staff niche than staff changes themselves. There’s a lot of moving parts to consider.

I personally like the idea of the staff being a support oriented skill. Damage, range, all of that is fine as is in my opinion, it’s more utility where I think it is lacking. It’s just a question of how you increase it’s utility in such a way as to make it useful, as opposed to having a weaker version of already existing roles.

Your idea about traits affecting staff might also be another way to go. Actually, now that I think about it, aside from cooldown reduction and symbol traits, we don’t have any traits that really synergize with staff.

In the end though, I really love the guardian’s staff as a weapon. I think it’s fun to use and it feels inherently different from other staff skillsets in the game. I just kinda wish I had more reasons to use it outside of WvW.

Orb and line of warding are the only skills that are in need of small change, for orb i would increase the healing and damage on explosion, or increse healing while orbs is crossing allies and then increase only the damage on explosion/detonation, it is a simple change.

Staff line of warding is a bit more complicated 40 sec for somethign that gets ignored very often, is lacks something for the 40sec CD.

Btw (Q:) does resistance makes player also invunerable to any kind of CC?
EX: players dont have stability and use resistance to get across a line or warding.
Since some classes on gruops are stacking 1minute+ resistance

Aeolus.3615:

Btw (Q:) does resistance makes player also invunerable to any kind of CC?
EX: players dont have stability and use resistance to get across a line or warding.
Since some classes on gruops are stacking 1minute+ resistance

Resistance stops the effect of any condition while it is active. It doesn’t, however, remove the condition.

So for example, if you are crippled and apply resistance, you’ll move normally until the resistance wears off, whereby you’ll then start to move slowly again. It also won’t stop effects like launches or knockbacks as far as I am aware, because those skills fall under control effects and are not conditions (fear and taunt fall under both control effects and conditions, but because of the latter, they are prevented by resistance).

As for line of warding, it also falls under the “control effect” category because of its knock back effect. It isn’t applying a condition.

@ Tenrai Senshi.2017 Tks for clarifying it for me, i had quite a few doubts about resistance.

Aeolus.3615:

Staff line of warding is a bit more complicated 40 sec for somethign that gets ignored very often, is lacks something for the 40sec CD.

The difference between Wave of Wrath and Line of Warding is that Line of Warding actually does something useful once every 40-32 seconds, and Wave of Wrath is always trash in any serious situation, unless you consider farming trash mobs in WvW to be a “serious situation”.

Fashion Mage.3712:

Aeolus.3615:

Staff line of warding is a bit more complicated 40 sec for somethign that gets ignored very often, is lacks something for the 40sec CD.

The difference between Wave of Wrath and Lind of Warding is that Line of Warding actually does something useful once every 40-32 seconds, and Wave of Wrath is always trash in any serious situation, unless you consider farming trash mobs in WvW to be a “serious situation”.

The one thing that wave of wrath is good for is hitting targets through walls or obstacles. A guardian using a staff can actually do quite a bit of damage though a gate to offenders on the other side, especially if you’re hitting a lot of targets and proc-ing Virtue of Justice (if traited for aoe burning, the stacks add up quite quickly and the damage is good even without condition gear). Have five guardians standing behind a gate and I’m sure you’d give typical ram offense attempts a lot of trouble.

The problem, again, is that these are very niche situations. For the skill to shine, ideal factors are required.

WoW staff one need a small chance to kb one of the hitted targets or some of the targets every X time, hehehehe, cmon its is our jedi force stick.

Tenrai Senshi.2017 staf trought gates?
necros and eles… do damge trough gates…. and far way from the gate(inner gate side).

Swagger.1459:

Staff 1- range 900 and more visible effect.

Swagger.1459:

Staff 1- range 900

Swagger.1459:

range 900

lol…