Guild Wars 2

I’ve stayed away from this weapon for a long time now for various reasons, and when I think about it I very rarely see it. When I do see it, I myself thing it’s a joke. Someone asked me my thoughts on it recently and it drew me back to the drawing board on how I might make a solid staff based build that can stand up to the test of todays meta. While I can put together a build in theory, in practice the staff ends up being a very weak main weapon, at least for roaming, and certainly for large scale combat. As support/team it does seem to improve, but only because the heat comes off the mesmer and his clones. And of course staff has always been easily relegated to an offhand “survival”, buy time weapon.

So I wanted to see what the community thought, and generate some constructive criticism surrounding staff.

• Do you run it, why/why not?
• What’s wrong with it, if anything?
• Where is staff weak?
• Where does staff shine?
• Does it need improvements?
• How would you improve it?

Video’s and builds as examples and for discussion would be well received.

I’d say it’s a very good weapon for utility, but not very good for damage.
I personally use it in PvP fo my condition Mesmer. It’s great for being annoying and playing defensively. If you want a fight to drag on, go for Staff.

If I had to pick a way to buff it, I’d say buff the auto-attack’s conditions.

EDIT: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYz9RbHHE4w
Here’s a video of a dude using the Staff effectively. Though he’s using what is apparently a bug with Phase Retreat.

Staff is one of mesmers best offensive/defensive weapons due to the Phase retreat and warlock, also one of the major AoEs mesmer have. Strong defensive is for sure, combofield finisher via leaps through chaos storm, can also combine with blasts…
I cant play without staff anymore, I die against anything if I dont have it, due to the retreat, I can force enemy attacks to miss.

Only bad is ofc bugged attacks it will fail on un-built oil sites, and Warlock may miss if enemy moves too much :/

For me, staff is fine no improvements except fixing some LoS issues and warlock missing it’s attack, but when you master the staff, you know how to make the warlock hit targets.

Staff has a place in any condition build and is the best weapon for an interrupt build. If you are in a power build and want some type of defensive option it is also the go to though it’s auto is dreadful for power builds.

I’ve been running a power PU build with staff + scepter/torch and the Phantasmal warlock alone can hit enemies for up to 7k… I don’t see how people think that it’s not good for damage.

I haven’t used the staff in ages (I play WvW). Ever since the confusion nerf, it hits like a wet noodle (no burst), has no high-damage AoE outside of the shatter (which you have with any weapon), and has absolutely no chase ability. Sure it can do a lot of damage once you get all of your clones up, but people can simply just walk away and you can’t do anything about it.

Everyone says that it is great for condition builds, but those don’t have much utility out of 1v1/very small group situations. Besides, I’d play my engineer if I wanted to use a condition build (it’s a lot less work to kill someone with an engineer condition build than a mesmer one).

If I were to improve the staff, I would both buff the projectile speed and damage of the autoattack. Right now all of the dps comes from the clones/iWarlock, which isn’t all that useful in WvW (outside of roaming).

I run staff in my roaming build. It’s fantastic.

Pros:
-Warlock hits like a truck if the enemy has a few conditions.
-If you take Chaotic Dampening, you become ridiculously slippery with phase retreat. Pseudo-stun break every 6 seconds? I think yes.
-If you take bountiful interruption, chaotic interruption, or halting strike, you can just throw a chaos storm into a zerg and watch the procs
-Boons 4 weekz
-Illusionary Elasticity = Boons 4 fortnightz
-Staff works great in both condition and power builds, whether PU, clone spamming, shatter, or phantasms.
-If you learn all the phase retreat locations in sPvP maps, you gain a huge advantage.
-Really hard to do, but if you can manage to do a 180 turn → phase retreat → 180 turn in less than one second, you become a mobility god.

Cons:
-Not as much damage a GS (But WAY more survivability)
-Not as much chasing potential as GS or pistol. However, if you can put a chaos storm on them, and chill procs, you’ve got them.
-Winds of Chaos could have a bit more power scaling.

Improvements:
-Slightly increase WoC power scaling.
-Decrease cooldown of Chaos storm from 35 seconds to 30 seconds.

Axelwarrior.9084:

I’d say it’s a very good weapon for utility, but not very good for damage.
I personally use it in PvP fo my condition Mesmer. It’s great for being annoying and playing defensively. If you want a fight to drag on, go for Staff.

If I had to pick a way to buff it, I’d say buff the auto-attack’s conditions.

EDIT: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYz9RbHHE4w
Here’s a video of a dude using the Staff effectively. Though he’s using what is apparently a bug with Phase Retreat.

Heh, did you read the title of that vid? Helseth saying Mesmer is not viable. You’re right though that he made good use of the staff, but on review you’ve got to ask for what? All it amounted to was a short range blink on a short cooldown, which he used to maneuver around the terrain. Expertly it should be said, but otherwise…

Something I see repeated (here and elsewhere) is the staffs AoE potential. While chaos storm is a mesmers obvious, go to AoE, I wonder what people could say about it when comparing to other classes? Everything from a staff ele, to a warriors auto attack cleave?

• What do you say with the comparison between classes in mind?

Viking Jorun.5413:

I’ve been running a power PU build with staff + scepter/torch and the Phantasmal warlock alone can hit enemies for up to 7k… I don’t see how people think that it’s not good for damage.

It’s not that the phantasm isn’t good for damage but everything else isn’t going to help you in a power build offensively.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Something I see repeated (here and elsewhere) is the staffs AoE potential. While chaos storm is a mesmers obvious, go to AoE, I wonder what people could say about it when comparing to other classes? Everything from a staff ele, to a warriors auto attack cleave?

• What do you say with the comparison between classes in mind?

Chaos storm isn’t the go to aoe for damage. It is the go to aoe to kitten with people.

Personally I find it very useful when playing shatter, just useful in a different way compare to greatsword.

Its phase retreat is really useful for escape and leap combo. It also provides 2 ways of chaos armor rather than utility or elite. Its not a stun breaker but it can be use when stunned. Staff makes you very slippery which I value it more than damage in roaming WvW.

Its a good weapon in PvP where you can drop chaos storm on points. If you combine chaos storm with the trait chaotic interruption (Chaos XI), you can root enemy in the AoE and make them really hard to escape that red circle (along with other conditions and further interruption).

In PvE situation, you can get almost perma chaos armor with staff. Just combine leap skills (phase retreat/ileap) with following rotation: chaos storm-phase retreat-swap to sword-nullfield-ileap-feedback-ileap-swap back to staff-chaos armor then back to chaos storm etc. Which makes a huge difference in mesmer’s survival.

Compare to greatswords, you probably will have a hard time chasing down roamers in WvW due to the slow projectiles in staff. The staff’s direct damage is also rather weak in a power build. Most of my damage comes from shatter and staff is more of a defensive weapon. Which is a shame as I’ll lack consistent damage after each shatter burst (again this is when I compare to greatsword).

I guess if I want to improve staff, I’d increase AA direct damage. I could be bias due to mainly playing power build but I feel that the condition damage doesn’t make up for slow projectiles and weak direct damage. Buffing condition damage is good but with the random picks from 3 conditions, condition damage could be rather inconsistent. Also they should really fix illusionary elasticity and allow clones’ wind of chaos to have additional bounce (or they fixed it? I don’t remember).

Buffing chaos storm’s condition duration will make mesmer more important in WvW zergs since its one of the few AoE’s we have (plus it has long cd). The short condition duration within makes it way more viable for buffing than applying condition. I know the best offense in that AoE is daze but its not frequent enough to make a difference.

NICENIKESHOE.7128:

In PvE situation, you can get almost perma chaos armor with staff. Just combine leap skills (phase retreat/ileap) with following rotation: chaos storm-phase retreat-swap to sword-nullfield-ileap-feedback-ileap-swap back to staff-chaos armor then back to chaos storm etc. Which makes a huge difference in mesmer’s survival.

I had to wonder at this. Obviously we can maintain a very long duration of chaos armor with staff, but this had me wondering, how much does that really help in PvE? You say it adds survival, and objectively it does (protective boons procced are protective boons proced). But can a mesmer survive just as well without a staff and without a very long chaos armor duration? More importantly, if used in a pvp situation, is it going to make a fight-defining impact?

It is true that you don’t really need long chaos armor to survive in PvE. I guess its because I like to play at melee range and long chaos armor makes high level fractals much less punishing.

I never actually try full combo out in PvP as I’d lack stun breakers, as well as condition cleansing during nullfield cd. And frankly feedback is very situational and may not help much in pvp. It makes you quite hard to kill normally, but there’s a lot of ways to get pass that. Especially with so many conditions and stuns in pvp. Plus I need phase retreat and ileap in other occasions. So its hard to adapt that into WvW or PvP. That being said I do find chaos armor useful, even better with mobility like phase retreat. Just not exactly a fight-defining skill in pvp.

I run power builds and I do use staff sometimes. However, only find it to be of significant value when i’m fighting outnumbered and when i’m fighting thieves. I really don’t think there is a better option when you are fighting 2 or more people. The sustain/survivability you get is amazing. And against thieves, having phase retreat, chaos armor and chaos storm is invaluable.

On the other hand, I find it’s damage to be very lackluster. I know theoretically, warlock hits like a truck but, from my experience its attacks miss like 90% of the time and the auto-attack is meh. So I end up doing virtually no damage while i have it equipped (unless i’m running shatter). For this reason, i’ve been using greatsword instead since my sustained dps is a lot higher. Though, sometimes i’ll lose a fights that I know I could have won if I had the defensive utility that staff provides. There’s always a trade off.

Probably one of the best examples i’ve seen of what staff can offer you in 1vX is situations is in this video. I still watch Seven’s videos to improve my gameplay.

zexion.5842:

Viking Jorun.5413:

I’ve been running a power PU build with staff + scepter/torch and the Phantasmal warlock alone can hit enemies for up to 7k… I don’t see how people think that it’s not good for damage.

It’s not that the phantasm isn’t good for damage but everything else isn’t going to help you in a power build offensively.

This is pretty much true. I really only start by creating a few clones to cast winds of chaos for cover conditions, drop chaos storm to build my might stacks, summon warlock, and swap to scepter/torch for sustained DPS/Kiting.

PandaBear.7510:

I run power builds and I do use staff sometimes. However, only find it to be of significant value when i’m fighting outnumbered and when i’m fighting thieves. I really don’t think there is a better option when you are fighting 2 or more people. The sustain/survivability you get is amazing. And against thieves, having phase retreat, chaos armor and chaos storm is invaluable.

On the other hand, I find it’s damage to be very lackluster. I know theoretically, warlock hits like a truck but, from my experience its attacks miss like 90% of the time and the auto-attack is meh. So I end up doing virtually no damage while i have it equipped (unless i’m running shatter). For this reason, i’ve been using greatsword instead since my sustained dps is a lot higher. Though, sometimes i’ll lose a fights that I know I could have won if I had the defensive utility that staff provides. There’s always a trade off.

Probably one of the best examples i’ve seen of what staff can offer you in 1vX is situations is in this video. I still watch Seven’s videos to improve my gameplay.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4ZQn1RRxBA

The trouble I have with sevens, or any staff play from the past (just look at those old retal procs) is that since release the staff has suffered various nerfs, tweaks, or bug fixes that have altered gameplay from these old videos. The other very important factor is that the meta has changed drastically from those earlier days. Perhaps more importantly, players themselves are vastly more experienced, and even your average enemy player is going to look at a mesmer, look at his staff, and know how things are going to play out.

Ross Biddle.2367:

PandaBear.7510:

I run power builds and I do use staff sometimes. However, only find it to be of significant value when i’m fighting outnumbered and when i’m fighting thieves. I really don’t think there is a better option when you are fighting 2 or more people. The sustain/survivability you get is amazing. And against thieves, having phase retreat, chaos armor and chaos storm is invaluable.

On the other hand, I find it’s damage to be very lackluster. I know theoretically, warlock hits like a truck but, from my experience its attacks miss like 90% of the time and the auto-attack is meh. So I end up doing virtually no damage while i have it equipped (unless i’m running shatter). For this reason, i’ve been using greatsword instead since my sustained dps is a lot higher. Though, sometimes i’ll lose a fights that I know I could have won if I had the defensive utility that staff provides. There’s always a trade off.

Probably one of the best examples i’ve seen of what staff can offer you in 1vX is situations is in this video. I still watch Seven’s videos to improve my gameplay.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4ZQn1RRxBA

The trouble I have with sevens, or any staff play from the past (just look at those old retal procs) is that since release the staff has suffered various nerfs, tweaks, or bug fixes that have altered gameplay from these old videos. The other very important factor is that the meta has changed drastically from those earlier days. Perhaps more importantly, players themselves are vastly more experienced, and even your average enemy player is going to look at a mesmer, look at his staff, and know how things are going to play out.

All good points and very true. I do think it still holds true that staff will help keep you alive better than other weapon sets. Whether or not you come out victorious with it when using a power build I think depends on what build you’re running and what you’re facing.

Ross Biddle.2367:

Axelwarrior.9084:

I’d say it’s a very good weapon for utility, but not very good for damage.
I personally use it in PvP fo my condition Mesmer. It’s great for being annoying and playing defensively. If you want a fight to drag on, go for Staff.

If I had to pick a way to buff it, I’d say buff the auto-attack’s conditions.

EDIT: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYz9RbHHE4w
Here’s a video of a dude using the Staff effectively. Though he’s using what is apparently a bug with Phase Retreat.

Heh, did you read the title of that vid? Helseth saying Mesmer is not viable. You’re right though that he made good use of the staff, but on review you’ve got to ask for what? All it amounted to was a short range blink on a short cooldown, which he used to maneuver around the terrain. Expertly it should be said, but otherwise…

Yeah, I think he was just joking with that title.

I agree that he didn’t accomplish much in that video, other than trolling his enemies, but it’s a good example of the possibilities of a staff. It clearly shows the defensive capabilities it has, as I pointed out in my first post.
Obviously, I’m not recommending that you get a staff and start trolling your enemies hoping you’ll win, but if you master it you can definitely improve your gameplay.

Axelwarrior.9084:

Ross Biddle.2367:

Axelwarrior.9084:

I’d say it’s a very good weapon for utility, but not very good for damage.
I personally use it in PvP fo my condition Mesmer. It’s great for being annoying and playing defensively. If you want a fight to drag on, go for Staff.

If I had to pick a way to buff it, I’d say buff the auto-attack’s conditions.

EDIT: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYz9RbHHE4w
Here’s a video of a dude using the Staff effectively. Though he’s using what is apparently a bug with Phase Retreat.

Heh, did you read the title of that vid? Helseth saying Mesmer is not viable. You’re right though that he made good use of the staff, but on review you’ve got to ask for what? All it amounted to was a short range blink on a short cooldown, which he used to maneuver around the terrain. Expertly it should be said, but otherwise…

Yeah, I think he was just joking with that title.

I agree that he didn’t accomplish much in that video, other than trolling his enemies, but it’s a good example of the possibilities of a staff. It clearly shows the defensive capabilities it has, as I pointed out in my first post.
Obviously, I’m not recommending that you get a staff and start trolling your enemies hoping you’ll win, but if you master it you can definitely improve your gameplay.

He recently quit Mesmer and took up Thief. Don’t know if he stuck with it as I’m not one of his “fan boys”, but there’s certainly a vid of him doing just that.

In WvW staff isn’t great. The weapon is too slow. In a power it does crap damage. In a condi build it is ok especially if you can get burning to 2sec from the default one sec. This gives 3x staff clones constant burning on a target.

It is ok for trying to survive 1vsX but it won’t kill any one and they just run away.

I wish more weapons, across all classes, were balanced like the mesmer staff.
I can be used in both power/phantasm and condition, and nothing protects your mesmer like a staff does.

Ever watched hambow warrior #4726 trying to hit your chaos armor, with aegis up, inside your chaos storm, just to see you blink away undamaged at the last second, reapply chaos armor, while your clones and your autoattack keep conditions up, and the occasional warlock hit brings the extra surprise touch.

Now if you like to blow things up fast, it’s not the weapon, and arguably not the class for you. But if you are patient, I see the staff as the most rewarding weapon around in PvP – WvW is another story since ‘running away’ there is a more viable strategy than in sPVP.

As fast as you can pop even untraited Staff clones out, the weapon’s hella workable in a shatter/condishatter build. And yes, its utility is without parallel. Hell, Staff never leaves
my weapon rotation, and I hope ANet never “fixes” it like they did Warden. NEVER.

Staff is good, as his clones might be the “most usefull” ones.
In additoin, Phase retreat is awesome for evades, “stunbreaks” and “phase retreats forward”.
When Confounding Suggestions was bugged, it made an awesome choice for interrupt builds.
Since the bug is gone, I actually dont use it anymore, as for me, Chaos Storm has a too long CD with too unreliable interrupts for using it in a lockdown build.

I’m honestly not sure how staff could be considered remotely dead. I run it on my WvW roaming condition build, and roaming will be the context for my comments.

Staff is mesmer’s most powerful condition damage weapon. The AoE condition potential, control and in-combat mobility are second to no other weapon set we have.

• Chaos Storm. itself can load opponents with conditions on a 28 second traited recharge.
• Chaos Armor. Though not as strong as it used to be, it offers respectable defense in protection, regeneration or swiftness when hit, while dishing out confusion, blind or cripple. Add to this the ability to maintain respectable uptime with phase retreat through chaos storm.
• Mobility. One of the best blink skills in the game (phase retreat) is available at a 6 second recharge fully traited. That still amazes me. As others stated, phase retreat isn’t a stun breaker, but when you’re immobilized and out of condition cleanses, it can be a life saver.
• Clones. Last but not least – they are the biggest win. They can proc bleeding, vulnerability or burning with their winds of chaos auto-attack. In addition, if sharper images is traited, on each attack/bounce they have a chance to proc additional bleeding. You can quickly load your opponent up with 10-15 bleed stacks with 2 clones and your auto-attack.

Typically people try to get precision to a respectable level to have phantasms stack bleeds with phantasmal fury/sharper images. However, I think it’s often overlooked that your clones’ auto-attacks/bounces can proc it as well. Even a personal 40% crit chance does wonders.

As master yoda once said, “control, control, you must learn control!” Well, you satisfy this with the staff. Between Chaos Storm daze, chill, poison and weakness and confusion/blind/cripple from chaos armor, you’re in control, ensuring your opponent has a hard time catching or hitting you while in combat.

Out of combat? You’re slow. Ok I admit it. But wait, what about that phase retreat/blink forward trick? Learn it now if you don’t know it. With this and blink on your bar, mobility isn’t nearly as bad, especially with PR on a 6s recharge.

I used staff for a loooong time. The best part of staff is phase retreat. The worse part is it’s lack of damage. Combat is all about keep pressure on at all times. Staff is a wonderful defensive weapon but when you switch to it you are not pressing your opponent any more. In the end I stopped using it because of that.