Guild Wars 2

I think most people can agree this skill is a joke outside of being a farming tool (which is kind of a joke in and of itself).
Assuming the opportunity came, what would you replace this skill with?

Helberd animations, and make it melee:D we got two range weapons now take inspiration from Revenant support style attack and thieves martial art animation.

I’d make it more akin to the trident number one skill, but with higher damage.

I would them make wave of wrath the number 2 skill.
However I would give it a 5 second cool down but with higher damage & give it a cripple+weakness to foes it hits.

I wouldnt change it. Its a good weapon overall.

Personally I’m fine with the staff’s auto-attack.

It will never happen, but I would like for it to stay the same animation and just have torment added to it to synergize with its other mobility skills.

^You mean it should apply torment to the Guardian himself?

Vikkela.7261:

^You mean it should apply torment to the Guardian himself?

Of course, your just there to tag the mob not offer any sort of DPS … there should be consequences.

Why not add cripple to it too after they long ago reduced the swiftness gained from #3 and force you to stand still to move faster :)

I don’t really see why anything offensive like that should be attached on to it. It’s pretty clearly a mid-ranged support weapon.

You can use staff in a Burning build for some nasty Permeating Wrath procs while retaining staff support.

Why change it? We already have weapons to fill other roles, why must they conflict? I love Wave of Wrath as it is, and besides, what would you change it to that won’t be similar to what we already have from other weapons?

Make it melee and its role simply conflicts with hammer, mace, sword or GS. Make it a ranged bounce attack and it conflicts with longbow. Make it ranged single target and it conflicts with scepter. Right now it is unique and has a defined role at least.

Tenrai Senshi.2017:

Why change it? We already have weapons to fill other roles, why must they conflict? I love Wave of Wrath as it is, and besides, what would you change it to that won’t be similar to what we already have from other weapons?

Make it melee and its role simply conflicts with hammer, mace, sword or GS. Make it a ranged bounce attack and it conflicts with longbow. Make it ranged single target and it conflicts with scepter. Right now it is unique and has a defined role at least.

Its role is undeniably support, which its auto-attack does not do in any way, shape, or form.

I certainly don’t think it should be melee, since chasing after allies with a melee-range support skill is a terrible idea.
I think making it ranged but not offensive would be appropriate for it. As you said, the scepter and longbow pretty much fulfill most ranged damage niches, and the guardian already has a variety of melee weapons fulfilling all niches.

At the very least, some sort of supportive effect should be placed on Wave of Wrath as its primary effect. I don’t care whether its healing, cleansing, or a short duration of a boon like regeneration or protection, just as long as it actually does what it should be doing (I don’t think it should affect the user either).

Water Blast (water staff #1) is the perfect example of a good supportive auto-attack.

I wish Anet could make a second set of skills that we can choose for staff but in melee, something like Rev has.
Then I would think about forgiving for not having land polearms in the game

In regards to support specifically, the rev’s melee staff attack is pretty badly designed. You need to pull off the whole combo to drop some (or just one?) orb(s) which grant very weak healing, which your allies then need to walk up to.
An ally in danger isn’t going to wait for you to run to them (making yourself vulnerable to AoE), and then finish a combo, or walk up to the orbs just for the healing. In fact you’ll probably just pick them up first, making it not supportive at all. This kind of thing is generally why most melee support is a bad idea really.

If you think staff does not have the potential to be a true damaging weapon , then you haven’t tried the wildfire build for large scale combat . it’s really scary how quickly the damage builds up from staff 1 alone .

http://en.gw2skills.net/editor/?vVAQJARWlsAhmhYtQwVIQQEHBEFeFihcwGAPwbmHiGcCB-TFyCwAQUCC4JAE4SA8SXgBzfNV+5c/Bfq/QKAImGB-w