Guild Wars 2

Hey!
I would like to know peoples oppinions on good staff builds for PvE (dungeons, fotm). I really like the staff and I want to use it more. Most of the times I use sword/focus phantasm build. Can the staff be integrated in this as well maybe?

If a build works with those 3 weapons I like the most (again, staff, sword and focus) it would be great

Shower me with ideas and oppinions people!

Xhean.3452:

Hey!
I would like to know peoples oppinions on good staff builds for PvE (dungeons, fotm). I really like the staff and I want to use it more. Most of the times I use sword/focus phantasm build. Can the staff be integrated in this as well maybe?

If a build works with those 3 weapons I like the most (again, staff, sword and focus) it would be great

Shower me with ideas and oppinions people!

Hi Xhean, the paladin build in my signature might suit you (1.0). You can build more tanky or glass depending on your need.

Thanks skcamow! Looks rather interesting but I’m not sure if going semi healer is something for me. I’m used to go full berserker and hit stuff Even though, it sounds like fun while reading about it

Actually that build is terrible for pve. Just run 10 in domination for empowered illusions and 25 in inspiration for the extra phantasm damage modifier, wardens feedback and glamour mastery and then beyond that just use whatever the hell you want. Phantasmal fury is good, and then you have 25 points left over to spend on whatever you want and you can go sword/focus and staff, full berserker. I’m not sure how healing power or tankiness is even remotely relevant to pve unless so skcamow can elaborate with some justification which can rationalise dropping extra power, precision and critical damage in favour of a bad stat which scales poorly.

Nice to see you back colsey

I did say you could run glass in my response. In PvE I run full zerker in the paladin builds and need to update the “more power” variants to reflect that. I personally don’t run with healing power or toughness as for me that’s not needed in PvE, but I know of people who run this build that do (for their own reasons I’m sure).

The build itself (trait distribution) is far from terrible, and in fact just fine for one who wishes to take a staff. Just switch the 10 in domination for the group build to empowered illusions. If restorative mantras isn’t needed I’ll often take persisting images or to your point, glamour mastery. Or you can spend those five as you wish. While you’re not “maxed”, you’re pulling your weight well.

You can really just toss the staff into your sword/focus phantasm build and it’ll do fine. The staff is basically a defensive weapon with a phantasm that hits like a truck, so use it accordingly.

skcamow.3527:

Nice to see you back colsey

I did say you could run glass in my response. In PvE I run full zerker in the paladin builds and need to update the “more power” variants to reflect that. I personally don’t run with healing power or toughness as for me that’s not needed in PvE, but I know of people who run this build that do (for their own reasons I’m sure).

The build itself (trait distribution) is far from terrible, and in fact just fine for one who wishes to take a staff. Just switch the 10 in domination for the group build to empowered illusions. If restorative mantras isn’t needed I’ll often take persisting images or to your point, glamour mastery. Or you can spend those five as you wish. While you’re not “maxed”, you’re pulling your weight well.

The problem is that quite literally every single chaos trait is a blank in regards to contributing to a dungeon group so it’s wasted points which makes, for the sake of pve, it better to just run a basic phantasm build and jam the staff in which works perfectly fine considering warlock is a power phantasm, and random bads in a pug won’t care about chaos storm being ethereal stopping them from interacting with a fire field since they’ve probably never heard of blast finishers (unless you have an LH else in which case definitely wait for them to drop fire first so it can be blasted with the auto chain).

Really glad I can use my staff with my sword/focus phantasms, that’s great and really exactly what I hoped for.
I have been thinking of using full zerker but with cavalier trinkets but maybe that’s a waste,

Xhean.3452:

Really glad I can use my staff with my sword/focus phantasms, that’s great and really exactly what I hoped for.
I have been thinking of using full zerker but with cavalier trinkets but maybe that’s a waste,

That’s a good choice if you feel like you need a bit more toughness. Cavaliers is probably the best stat distribution to tack on to a zerker set other than zerker itself.

Pyroatheist.9031:

That’s a good choice if you feel like you need a bit more toughness. Cavaliers is probably the best stat distribution to tack on to a zerker set other than zerker itself.

That’s what I thought!

Btw, what sigils should I use for my zerker sw/focus – staff phantasm build then?

sometimes I use staff in the normal phantasm builds (I use 10/30/0/20/10) – it’s a pretty good weapon for fighting big numbers of mobs with chaos storm + switch to sw/fc to get some good cc/damage off on the trash. it’s pretty nice to have and against trash there really isn’t much better of an option since the other mesmer offhand phantasms don’t cleave.

for sigils just stick to usual force + x, x being night/slaying/accuracy. accuracy is also the weakest choice so you should try to use night or slaying. on staff I would use the same, although only 1 sigil so probably force because I’m lazy.

I’m using a superior sigil of bloodlust on sword, and a superior sigil of strength on all offhands in my zerker-setup. I also use strength on my staff. (You could also use battle instead of strength if you switch weapons a lot in combat). That’s because as far as I know, the percentual increases from sigil of force and the like do not transfer to your phantasms, while bloodlust-stacks and might do. And since most of your damage will come from your phantasms, it makes sense to chose sigils which also affect their damage-output.

Talking about staff; I love staff while playing my condi-build and I also love it in my zerker-build in certain situations. Mainly (with zerker) for fast AoE-tagging and supporting with a bit of aegis if needed; but also for bosses where you know they will have lots of unique conditions on them. I saw my iWarlocks crit for 17k on those champion spiders at the temple of Melandru.

Saturn.6591:

I’m using a superior sigil of bloodlust on sword, and a superior sigil of strength on all offhands in my zerker-setup. I also use strength on my staff. (You could also use battle instead of strength if you switch weapons a lot in combat). That’s because as far as I know, the percentual increases from sigil of force and the like do not transfer to your phantasms, while bloodlust-stacks and might do. And since most of your damage will come from your phantasms, it makes sense to chose sigils which also affect their damage-output.

Talking about staff; I love staff while playing my condi-build and I also love it in my zerker-build in certain situations. Mainly (with zerker) for fast AoE-tagging and supporting with a bit of aegis if needed; but also for bosses where you know they will have lots of unique conditions on them. I saw my iWarlocks crit for 17k on those champion spiders at the temple of Melandru.

Can anyone confirm about the sigil transfer to phantasms? If it’s true then you got a really valid point there Saturn
I was thinking of maybe using sigil of perception on one of my weapons, but don’t know if bloodlust would be better. However I always have a hard time deciding sigils especially for a 2h weapon like staff.