Guild Wars 2

Dear gw2 players,

This topic is purely made to discuss the fact that the purple projectile from WoC ( winds of chaos #1 ) is very slow.
I heard multiple people saying that Mesmers might be the worst class in tagging mobs cause of AoE and so on.

My question ( also kinda a suggestion ) is – does Arenanet need to increase the speed the purple projectile from staff skill nr1 woc( not the cd )?

When i walk in Orr and participate in events with my staff i’m having some problems. Ofcourse one can drop a chaos storm and shatter illusions, but sometimes im forced to use winds of chaos. To my surprise woc doesnt even hit the mob cause it dies faster then the speed of the projectile itself.

I think this would increase the fun playing with a staff and makes things just a bit easier. Im also kinda comparring it to the GS where it hits immediatly, and thats just nice ^^.

You can agree and disagree and then please state why.

Thanks in advance.

ps, sorry for my english.

It’s not just the slow projectile speed, it’s the slow cast time. It takes AGES to fly from your staff, then it slowly inches towards the opponent. Not only that, but it can get body blocked…

the only way to tag properly is to run a shatter build and before they increase (if that ever happens) attack/projectile speed they better remove vulnerability from WoC completely or change it for a damaging condition even if it lasts 1sec (poison).

Nuka Cola.8520:

they better remove vulnerability from WoC completely or change it for a damaging condition even if it lasts 1sec (poison).

Why do they need to remove the vuln before buffing the speed…. it’s a support weapon and vuln is the only support condition on WoC. I wouldn’t mind poison or weakness, but honestly I see them changing the speed/cast time long before they meddle with the actual effects.

Odaman.8359:

Nuka Cola.8520:

they better remove vulnerability from WoC completely or change it for a damaging condition even if it lasts 1sec (poison).

Why do they need to remove the vuln before buffing the speed…. it’s a support weapon and vuln is the only support condition on WoC. I wouldn’t mind poison or weakness, but honestly I see them changing the speed/cast time long before they meddle with the actual effects.

It’s too slow and the vuln makes the damage even slower.

How does adding 1% damage make your dps slower?

Why would you do 1% more damage when you can get the WEAKEST condition on their to do about 3-5% of your total damage output if you’re specced condition damage.

Staff is about condition damage and the auto attacks apply conditions, so why does it give vulnerability instead of a condition?

WoC is slow and random. Also, you need to be close and face tank the mob. If you are a Power/Crit mesmer, Chaos Storm can do some damage, but shatter is still the best for tagging.

They should just give us the Trident skills. Keep Phase Retreat and Chaos Storm, give me Siren’s Call, Ineptitude (would be perfect with confusion on blind trait) and Illusionary Whaler. FYI, Siren’s Call of clones is affected by Illusionary Elasticity and not WoC clones…

Just give us Siren’s Call, ANet.

Odaman.8359:

Nuka Cola.8520:

they better remove vulnerability from WoC completely or change it for a damaging condition even if it lasts 1sec (poison).

Why do they need to remove the vuln before buffing the speed…. it’s a support weapon and vuln is the only support condition on WoC. I wouldn’t mind poison or weakness, but honestly I see them changing the speed/cast time long before they meddle with the actual effects.

Because its only 1 worthless stack. If it was 3 stacks/6-8sec then at least you could call this as a support condi but as is it isn’t support condi but a useless condi. Its already hard as is finishing off targets that are fleeing on a condition build and the useless vulnerability doesn’t improve that. As i see it, vulnerability should ONLY be on high damaging skills and WoC is one of the lowest base damage skills in the game and probably the slowest there is.

I’m always kinda sad when people outrun my winds of chaos. :<

Winds of Chaos is like a slot machine.

If you hit a burn, you’re like YES!
If you get a bleed, you nod your head expectantly.
If you get vulnerability, you sigh.

A little faster cast/projectile speed would be nice, and multiple stacks of vuln or relpacing vuln with weakness would rock, but other than that I see little problem with it.

Staff is a bad weapon for tagging mobs or doing damage quickly. If your looking to tag mobs quickly your best bet is 1-handed sword, get right in the middle of things and start swinging like you are being attacked by bees.

I primarily play with a staff myself, and while a faster projectile would be nice I would rather have a faster attack recharge so it would more reliably stack boons/conditions.

Very glad to read so many people that feel the same way. I see multiple topics rising about this issue where people compare the staff’s attack with other weapons etc.

Kinda hope a arenanet official could respond if they are planning/will consider to change some stuff about woc.

I have a love-hate relationship with this skill. On the one hand, I love the DoT aspect of conditions and natural choice to build toughness with the staff. On the other hand, this attack makes me want to cry.

Just as an example, when I play WvW and I’m defending a keep/tower, I have very few options for damaging players down below. Which is fine, except the only one with a recharge under 20 seconds will apply vulnerability ~33% of the time. That means I have to give up about 33% of my damage because of that one condition.

The vulnerability will indeed stack up and help teammates down players faster- but is the extra 1% damage actually going to do more? Assuming a 15khp character (which is average), that vulnerability will account for a max 150 damage (assuming that the player gets bursted down with nothing but pure damage for the other 99%).

Meanwhile, the burns and bleeds are guaranteed damage, and tick for easily double, even triple that. The only cases that vulnerability is even worthwhile on this attack (due to the very short duration and low stacking potential) is when you have a group that can burst them down before a bleed/burn would fully tick.

For some mathematical proof, a bleed at level 80 will cause 42.5 damage per second with 0 condition damage. That means that the MINIMUM damage that a bleed can do is 297.5 damage. In order to match up to that, either the bleeding cap needs to be reached, or the enemy must have 297.5*100 = 29.75k hp. And that is only when you have no condition damage- if you have 1500 condition damage (which is still conservative), you’re looking at 822 damage bleeds. So the enemy must have 822*100= 82.2k hp in order to match the damage. Not only that, but they must also lose the rest of their life during the duration of the vulnerability through pure damage, not condition damage.

Think about that for a moment. The opponent must have over 82 thousand life, and must lose it all in a matter 5 seconds (duration of 1 vulnerability stack) in order for the vulnerability to not hinder your dps. And the only way to achieve this is in a huge group.

The only time you don’t screw yourself over is when your damage is negligible to begin with. That is why vulnerability sucks on the staff, and that is why it needs to be removed.

in wvw, staff is underpowered compared to other mesmer weapons, maybe except for scepter. if they changed the vulnerability to poison, or a 1s chill/weakness, it would bring it up its usefulness.

however it’ll make staff even more over the top in spvp. rabid/staff build in spvp is supreme in holding and denying capture points, to give it even more damage or utility makes mesmers even stronger in spvp.

how would you balance for both wvw and spvp when the fighting happens in such different environments?

Remember that this topic about increasing the projectile speed of WoC. I am not asking for a faster recharge or different conditions comming from WoC. I made this choice cause simply increasing the projectile speed already has a dps increase, with more conditions and faster recharge it will get turned down to fast.

increasing projectile speed does not increase dps. the cast time of the skill would still remain the same. the only thing increasing projectile speed would be is make the projectile harder to dodge roll in pvp.

as for your original concern with DE tagging, increasing projectile speed doesn’t make the attack any better at tagging. it will still only hit 2 targets maximum.

you’re better off using GS or sword, and traiting IP if you’re concerned with tagging.

Im not concerned about tagging, im just saying the projectile speed needs to be increased. This increases dps cause, as i stated earlier, most of the time people can outrun the projectile in WvWvW situations or in orr where mobs die in mather of seconds. If the projectile is increased in speed then you have more chance to hit and therefore you have a dps increase.

I know i can use other weapons for tagging, but this time im focussing on making the staff a better weapon to do this. I know i can use sword and gs.

Mr Niice.2307:

Im not concerned about tagging, im just saying the projectile speed needs to be increased. This increases dps cause, as i stated earlier, most of the time people can outrun the projectile in WvWvW situations or in orr where mobs die in mather of seconds. If the projectile is increased in speed then you have more chance to hit and therefore you have a dps increase.

I know i can use other weapons for tagging, but this time im focussing on making the staff a better weapon to do this. I know i can use sword and gs.

the problem is different weapons are made for different purposes. staff is a defensive weapon in nature, its just not designed for it.

you’re not a game designer, anet made different weapons to suit different things.

and i agree that staff projectile is weak in wvw, but you cant buff it without making staff even more OP in spvp. hard to balance correctly.

@wads:
I don’t think the staff is all that UP in wvwvw. I love it there.

Phase Retreat is one of the best tools we have for defense with the constant juking, esp when outnumbered. And CA and CS are close behind it, plus CS doubles as an ethereal combo field (something no other weapon skill can do).

Staff is definitely the best group support weapon we have and makes even GC builds viable due to it’s awesome D in “oh kitten” moments. Just play to it’s strengths, and it can very good to you while roaming or in zergs.

I would not be against an increase in WoC projectile speed, although I feel that its current form somewhat emphasises the fact that, despite having 1,200 range, WoC is very much a close-to-medium range attack. It is quite aggravating however when someone runs from you and you have no chance of hitting them despite wielding a ranged weapon.