Guild Wars 2

I’ve been loving Guardian play, and I’ve had almost no issues with anything about the class.

One thing that isn’t quite rubbing me right is the staff abilities. Now it may well be personal preference but I thought I’d share my thoughts and see if anyone agrees.

1st ability – An AoE cone, ok it doesn’t feel powerful or anything but it will do
2nd ability – _Maybe I’m missing something here. I’m under the impression I can use this orb to heal allies, the problem is it always wants to fly in a straight line towards enemies. This makes it a little ineffective as if someone is on low health and wants a heal they usually are running AWAY from enemy targets :P _

I feel this could be improved by a few options:

1. Make the line it runs in a placement similar to aoe.
2. Allow the orb to fly towards an ally that is targetted
3. Completely scrap it’s current mechanic. Perhaps instead the orb could drop the sky onto enemies, doing damage to them and healing nearby allies.

3rd ability – no problems here
4th ability – Seems ok, maybe slightly reduce the cast time or allow movement whilst casting?
5th ability – A nice move, though again, reduced cast or movement whilst casting might make it a bit nicer, but not unbalanced.

I really want to like the staff but I feel nerfed when using it compared to other weapon sets.
Anyone else feel the same?

I don’t see how your suggestion for an AoE that heals nearby players differs from the current implementation.
Arenanet has played around with different variables of Line of Warding after player feedback in the Beta Weekends. If I recall correctly, we either have instant-cast, ground targetability or cast while moving, but we can’t have two of them for balance reasons.

Well the difference would be that it doesn’t follow a line of targetting. It would work similar to the #3 ability on tridents underwater – instead of following a line and slowly moving it, the ball would come from vertically above onto the opponent, making it much more accurate.

Currently I’m having issues where players/opponents are moving around too much for the orb skill to be effective, unless I’m REALLY close to the fight.

Targeted healing is terrible in the game anyway. I don’t think the Orb of Light is intended to save dying players. I think it’s more for delaying the time before they need to press their own healing skill.
That being said, Orb of Light is the worst ability on the Staff and bugs out on my occasionally.

I do agree, I only use the staff to travel long distances which is a shame because I want to be support:ish somehow but it’s not really possible because you hardly do any healing or even damage with the staff. :L

The staff is actually a pretty amazing weapon because of 3, 4 and 5. If you use a stability shout (we have two) you can ensure you won’t get interrupted while casting in pve/pvp. I was running staff with a full shout utility build and full cleric armor (level 80 rare) last night with great success.

The 1 and 2 I only really enjoy in pve zergs since they’re great for tapping multiple mobs. Sure you can detonate the #2 for a small heal, and it’s useful but as you’ve pointed out it’s limited in its trajectory. I’m not entirely sure that requires it to be fixed, however. They’ve been pretty good at shying away from pure healer classes and staff guardian is borderline there as it is (particularly if you run with the elite).

Yeah that’s why I find, I just feel if the number 2 skill was replaced or changed then it would be a much more fun weapon to play with.

The #2 is another ranged attack/heal. It’s not OP or anything, but it is perfectly fine. Especially when you consider the #4 ability- Empower. This is an absolutely awesome ability. 12 stacks of might on you and allies around and a big burst heal at the end. Oh, and if you have Altruistic healing, you’re healing yourself throughout the whole channel.

I think the Staff is the best Guardian support weapon.

I like the staff in both pve and PvP. You know that #2 is near-spammable and that it goes through targets, and that the symbol does respectable aoe damage? Staff is actually excellent for kiting and does above average aoe dmg.

I feel nerfed using a staff. Even is a support build.
As for pvp, i dont see standing still an option so that heals plus might will only happen in pre fights.
Line of warding can be sorta usefull to block progress in narrow spots, but again, other weapon sets can be far more supporting than a staff.

Right now, I dont see a use except nerfing yourself.
And no, that speed buff is awsome, but again, it is also something to be done pre fights.

Zelden.6143:

I’ve been loving Guardian play, and I’ve had almost no issues with anything about the class.

One thing that isn’t quite rubbing me right is the staff abilities. Now it may well be personal preference but I thought I’d share my thoughts and see if anyone agrees.

1st ability – An AoE cone, ok it doesn’t feel powerful or anything but it will do
2nd ability – _Maybe I’m missing something here. I’m under the impression I can use this orb to heal allies, the problem is it always wants to fly in a straight line towards enemies. This makes it a little ineffective as if someone is on low health and wants a heal they usually are running AWAY from enemy targets :P _

I feel this could be improved by a few options:

1. Make the line it runs in a placement similar to aoe.
2. Allow the orb to fly towards an ally that is targetted
3. Completely scrap it’s current mechanic. Perhaps instead the orb could drop the sky onto enemies, doing damage to them and healing nearby allies.

3rd ability – no problems here
4th ability – Seems ok, maybe slightly reduce the cast time or allow movement whilst casting?
5th ability – A nice move, though again, reduced cast or movement whilst casting might make it a bit nicer, but not unbalanced.

I really want to like the staff but I feel nerfed when using it compared to other weapon sets.
Anyone else feel the same?

1: The auto attack is nice if kiting multiple mobs. Little weak 1v1 but eh cant have it both ways.
2: Ok so the trick here is to tell team mates that if there running from the mob its hard to give them heals. Although i normally use this on cool down and dont really use it as an emergency heal.
3: With the right trait build this single skill can be very powerful. Frankly i love it.
4: Im with you. I would like to see this channeled faster as this is kinda the main heal and well 4 seconds is just rough for trying to spot heal the group if we got hit by aoe. So many times the mobs come and basically kill me before i get it off. The buff is nice though as a damage booster.
5: This skill i personally find useless as you can just go around it or if they have ranged kinda defeats the point of it. Only time i’ve found it nice is i see melee adds incoming from a door. Throw it on the door and it gives us 5 seconds to get ready for them.

Over all staff is a bit of a letdown to me as we really dont have any good ranged option imho. Wish this was balanced slightly more given how nice we are on melee. I want to feel like a battle cleric when i use my staff! Currently i’m far from that.

Reihert.1509:

I feel nerfed using a staff. Even is a support build.
As for pvp, i dont see standing still an option so that heals plus might will only happen in pre fights.
Line of warding can be sorta usefull to block progress in narrow spots, but again, other weapon sets can be far more supporting than a staff.

Right now, I dont see a use except nerfing yourself.
And no, that speed buff is awsome, but again, it is also something to be done pre fights.

Hit #4 then Stand your Ground in the middle of a fight, done.

As for the #3 — Who doesn’t need a speed boost and a nice aoe in the middle of a fight? I drop it on an ally so he can chase down or get away from an enemy when they need to. I really like putting a line of warding right behind a guy, then drop Symbol of Swiftnessss on them. Many times they back right up into the Ward and fall down.

No ability should be looked at as if it isn’t part of a whole build. If your staff feels nerfed, then it probably has something to do with your build not supporting staff play. I find the staff to be my go to weapon in WvW no matter what the situation.

(PvE only) Despite my initial believe, I really like the staff.

#1: Hits multiple targets in a wide area at mid range that alone is great but serves two purposes 1) hitting multiple enemies will trigger your Virtue of Judgment more often 2) hitting multiple enemies seems to be imported for event contribution and gaining loot

#2: Difficult to use but hits multiple enemies and heals allies. The fact that you can’t target an ally to heal is inherent to GW2 healing concept.

#3: I often underestimate speed buffs but I use this for traveling AND as additonal AOE damage

#4: 12 stacks of might is amazing and I think casting time is a reasonable price

#5: Can keep multiple enemies away from you for a few seconds (i.e. you take no damage). Works greate to cluster enemies during “defend something” events and spam #1.

TheBlueI.3486:

(PvE only) Despite my initial believe, I really like the staff.

This is my opinion also. I didn’t like the staff at first. I decided to give it another go. I find with a lot of the weapons that playing them is a lot different than reading abilities and thinking about what might be good and bad about them.

Staff #4 + Altruistic Healing while in a zerg group = 2nd Heal Skill. Seriously, the thing can heal 6k+ hp.

ShadowbaneX.6273:

Staff #4 + Altruistic Healing while in a zerg group = 2nd Heal Skill. Seriously, the thing can heal 6k+ hp.

I agree. Its a powerful skill. One of the best skills to boost everyone around you’s damage and throw decent aoe healing.

I’d like to add, that #2 can’t target ally because all of the skills in the game are designed to target an enemy or AoE. I consider it forbidden to have a skill that targets an ally. This is to force correct positioning. If you could have ally targeted skill, then you would just click portrait of ally with lowest HP and press 2. This is agaist what this game is trying to achieve in combat.

Instead you and your ally need to be aware of your relative position and position of the enemy. There are a lot of skills and combos working this way. For example ranger shooting through water field will grant regeneration to allies. It is up to you and allies to be in correct position.

That said, I like skill #2 on staff. Note that this is one of few PIERCING attacks. It can deal good amount of dmg and has only 3s recharge. You can try → #3 and #5 to create AoE, keep mobs in there and separate them from you , while you cast #4 to give you huge dmg boost, then casting auto-fire, move left or right, so that mobs are aligned in line, and cast #2, while still having 12 stacks of might.

Use orb for heeling only when there are melees fightning large monster and additional heal every 12s (which can heal 1/6 of their hp) is usefull to them.

Since #1 is good for aoe but lacks power for single target, #2 fills that gap a little bit.