Staff leveling build ideas
Just spam Phase Retreat on cooldown until you have 3 clones up for the most part. It works like a phantasm build with much lower damage: run in circles until stuff dies.
Chaos Storm isn’t as impactful especially if you play condi as you really only get aegis and dazes out of it. It’s also your only ranged AoE attack, so keep a greatsword or Mantra of Pain handy for zerg tagging events.
That said if you pay a little attention you’re almost impossible to kill, and clones are easier to replace than phantasms.
In terms of traitline unlocks, Domination gives you signet CDR and vulnerability stacking (but not much else); Dueling gives vigor, bleed-on-crit, dodge clones and boosts to your second weapon set; Chaos is the “obvious” staff line but is kinda bad for PvE, at least the Adept Major is good for solo play; Inspiration gives sustain+support but nothing directly related to staff (mantra heals, traited focus and boonshare/glamour buff are nice to have though); Illusions gives you a proper CDR on your most important skill (Phase Retreat, that is) and various damage boost/condi options.
As for what to unlock first, Dueling (clone/personal) and Illusions (shatter) are your best bet for condition offense, Inspiration gives additional swiftness uptime and general utility. Chaos gives personal survivability. Domination isn’t really worth it imo, you’ll lack the daze utilities and direct damage to make proper use of the line.
chaos storm is really powerful in a condition build.. poison, confusion, dazes which inflict confusion if the target/targets are interrupted and chaos armor when you phase retreat out of chaos storm which inflicts confusion again :P
mantra of pain to tag is a good idea, also, go close to the mob and shatter without illusions, applies torment to everyone around.
for condition builds with only staff, you’ll deal a lot of bleeding, poison through chaos storm and small amount of burning from auto attack. trait lines to choose are dueling, illusions and chaos.
chaos storm is really powerful in a condition build.. poison, confusion, dazes which inflict confusion if the target/targets are interrupted and chaos armor when you phase retreat out of chaos storm which inflicts confusion again :P
mantra of pain to tag is a good idea, also, go close to the mob and shatter without illusions, applies torment to everyone around.
for condition builds with only staff, you’ll deal a lot of bleeding, poison through chaos storm and small amount of burning from auto attack. trait lines to choose are dueling, illusions and chaos.
The title states “leveling” though, so MtD will take a while to get and Mistrust even longer (plus it conflicts with DE). The poison from Chaos Storm is pitiful, even more so once you consider the cooldown, and Chaos Armor doesn’t help much because you should rarely get hit by mobs.
Right now I’m Level 23 and absolutely hate the greatsword. I come from playing a lot of dota and mobility and playmaking is everything to me. The phase retreat in combination with blink and decoy is loads of fun but I just feel like it’s lacking in power when trying to participate in those big world events where everybody is in one spot attacking the same enemies. I can live with using greatsword for zergs, but staff is feeling a little weak still even with small trash mobs. I appreciate some of the insight so far as to what specializations a staff would benefit most from in pve leveling scenarios. Please keep the suggestions coming as I would love more than one opinion.
your right on those points photo, mistrust comes at a later level, more importantly even on a single target, that’s 5 small damage ticks along with small conditions.. phase retreat out of chaos storm for chaos armor which puts in more pressure. Chaos storm’s a skill to use whenever it’s ready. it just offers more dps, you only lose out on 1 auto attack in it’s casting time :-)
i like getting hit when i’v got chaos armor :P
(edited by Telekinesis.8312)