Guild Wars 2

Mikkel.8427:

Try it! Or dont! Its PvE, play however you want. Tickling things to death with staff is still an option.

I wouldn’t exactly call doing 7k – 10k dps, SOLO, less than 10s into the fight “tickling” by any means…

Embolism.8106:

Phase Retreat is a great defensive skill and can proc Chaos Armour (more on that later). If you’re using Chaotic Dampening it’s also guaranteed Protection. Unlike central Tyria, defence is actually a concern in Maguuma.

Then of course there’s the fact that it’s an on-demand Clone, something Sceptre doesn’t have; which also happens to contribute more DPS than Sceptre Clones.

Given that you’re talking of Sinister builds, I don’t think you can ignore Warlock at all. If nothing else it is the lowest CD Phantasm for Shatter fodder.

“Chaos Armour is worthless, why are you getting hit?” The same can be said of Illusionary Counter. Yes I know IC has a stronger on-hit effect, but the point is asking “why are you getting hit” is weird when one of the skills you’re using is all about getting hit.

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But all this seems irrelevant, because we’re on two different pages here. If you’re using the Warden then you’d be switching weapons fairly frequently I imagine (as the Warden with Alacrity is on a 12s/15s CD).

My discussion with Telekinesis was about him not switching weapons, claiming that doing so is a DPS loss. In fact he claimed that Ether Bolt deals more DPS than Winds of Chaos, which I’ve proven is quite the opposite.

I do believe we’re arguing two completely different points.

I’m looking at it from an ‘entire package’ PoV. Looking back, I can see you’re only trying to prove WoC is more damage than the scepter AA.

WoC damage > Scepter AA

That I agree with.

Edit:

@Frifox

Don’t get me wrong, I love the staff. Its my favorite weapon thematically and graphically. That doesn’t change the fact that you tickled that golem to death. You tickled it reeeal good.

just to be clear.. i didn’t debate with woc damage being lesser than scepter aa… it was about scepter aa with quickness from stm is higher dps than staff auto attack without quickness in the sword build that you mentioned.. not to mention scepter auto attack also summons clones dealing torment again.. but if you consider retreat and warlock.. we’r talking about counter and confusing images.. and counter is only on a 8 second cd without alacrity being added into the mix.

we need to have 3 clones upkeep on staff for the dps.. we cant shatter and get the clones back without dodges.. it’s overall a dps loss than sticking to scepter and shattering once or twice in the 7-8 second window and counter atleast once and confusing images.. regarding our priority damage pressure coming only from shatters and weapons dont really matter.. which i strongly object with.. weapons do contribute a lot to the pressure.

you got the topic into my build when i mentioned i dont switch to staff and camp in scepter.. to which i answered.. unless chaos storm is out of cooldown.. it’s a dps loss in staff, that means i’m counting all the spells not just auto attack.

Telekinesis.8312:

just to be clear.. i didn’t debate with woc damage being lesser than scepter aa… it was about scepter aa with quickness from stm is higher dps than staff auto attack without quickness in the sword build that you mentioned.. not to mention scepter auto attack also summons clones dealing torment again.. but if you consider retreat and warlock.. we’r talking about counter and confusing images.. and counter is only on a 8 second cd without alacrity being added into the mix.

we need to have 3 clones upkeep on staff for the dps.. we cant shatter and get the clones back without dodges.. it’s overall a dps loss than sticking to scepter and shattering once or twice in the 7-8 second window and counter atleast once and confusing images.. regarding our priority damage pressure coming only from shatters and weapons dont really matter.. which i strongly object with.. weapons do contribute a lot to the pressure.

you got the topic into my build when i mentioned i dont switch to staff and camp in scepter.. to which i answered.. unless chaos storm is out of cooldown.. it’s a dps loss in staff, that means i’m counting all the spells not just auto attack.

You haven’t verified your claims with numbers on the dps from those shatters, though.

i’m only counting minimum shatter damage into consideration in the dps difference between scepter and staff.. taking into consideration quickness from shatters for the scepter. minimum shatter damage is atleast 4 torment and 8 confusion.