Guild Wars 2

I play a zerker phantasmal mesmer, but there are times I need to pick up the staff for its utility. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great weapon – but it just doesn’t seem powerful enough. I know it’s more of a condi weapon, and a zerker build won’t do it proper justice.

The only times I use it are for certain dungeons and fractals, usually if I want more range, defense, or support. But in all honesty, the times I do switch to staff, I feel like I’m doing even less contribution to my team, and probably better off sticking with sword/random offhand and GS.

I can’t change my traits in the middle of a run, but I could change jewels and gear that can make the staff more powerful. It’s really only pulled out for support and range, or if I need more aoe-oriented attacks. I’m asking staff users for their input, on how a zerker mesmer can get the most benefit from the staff.

They are the exact reasons I use staves. There are a few places where the extra boost to support make equipping it worth while. I don’t worry about changing gear/traits just for the few occasions or minutes when I’ll be using it. The effectiveness for what I want it for is good enough without messing with armor/traits.

The effects of support is pretty invisible in PvE but it is noticeable to those it’s helping .

There also tends to be a lot of ‘snobbery’ over weapons outside of the skip and stack meta but it’s one of the marks of a good player IMHO that knows how to use the right tool for the right situation.

The only times I use it are for certain dungeons and fractals, usually if I want more range, defense, or support.

You want it for range/defense, not support. Random short duration boons aren’t good support at all, and chaos armour is just bad.

the times I do switch to staff, I feel like I’m doing even less contribution to my team, and probably better off sticking with sword/random offhand and GS.

You’re quite literally never better off sticking with Greatsword.

I can’t change my traits in the middle of a run, but I could change jewels and gear that can make the staff more powerful. It’s really only pulled out for support and range, or if I need more aoe-oriented attacks. I’m asking staff users for their input, on how a zerker mesmer can get the most benefit from the staff.

Staff AOE is like 500 damage pings, if you want real damage, go sword/focus and cleave like six enemies at the same time for real damage. One example I can think of where staff can work is turning backwards and phase retreating in Arah skips.

The effects of support is pretty invisible in PvE but it is noticeable to those it’s helping .

Not sure what you mean here, the effects are pretty blatant to me.

There also tends to be a lot of ‘snobbery’ over weapons outside of the skip and stack meta but it’s one of the marks of a good player IMHO that knows how to use the right tool for the right situation.

There isn’t a lot of snobbery at all, it’s practically just me and Guang who were telling people to stop using bad weapons. It’s the mark of a good player to be aware of the meta, why the meta is the way it is and to be able to correctly adapt to new situations. Basic example would be me switching to defensive utils, bull’s charge and sword/warhorn in trash skips in Arah for better mobility. Then you get some players who think they’re using the right tool but are misguided.

I guess it depends on what you want from a dungeon/instance/whatever. Speed runs, just for the reward I wouldn’t argue with the meta.

If you wanted to explore builds, combo’s, deeper combat mechanics or just do a run for the fun of it then anything goes.

As you and I said, just blindly running the meta because it’s meta doesn’t really help anyone., Understanding why, what, when and how helps (to me anyway) makes gameplay and combat a deeper, more enjoyable experience.

OFC you need to make sure you have a like minded group of people whatever you choose. If you don’t that’s when the trouble starts

I guess it depends on what you want from a dungeon/instance/whatever. Speed runs, just for the reward I wouldn’t argue with the meta.

If you wanted to explore builds, combo’s, deeper combat mechanics or just do a run for the fun of it then anything goes.

Sorry, I didn’t know optimal players didn’t explore builds, combos or deeper combat mechanics or play for fun. Did you know that most people here used to run 10/30/0/30/0 but even though it was less “mainstream” I ran 0/20/0/25/25? I wanted to explore whether phantasmal haste compensated for the missing phantasm damage modifier in domination III (note – it doesn’t when you use swordsmen) and whether illusionist’s celerity would give me better phantasm uptime. 10s weapon swaps made it kind okittenward though.

Also as far as I know, I like to make use of combos myself, blasting smoke fields for stealth skipping, fire fields for might and then there’s WvW where you blast static and water. When I played guard a while back I’d even use light symbol against Subject Alpha and whirl to cleanse burning/bleed. And how’s this for deeper combat mechanics:

(shameless advertisement)

How many warriors do you think know burst skills give you half your endurance back? How many people even bother going out of their way to learn this guy besides hardcores? Note my horrific positioning of Lupicus, there’s an art to positioning him correctly and I did it completely wrong there. Then there’s, well, the mechanics of the boss itself.

Yesterday I sat in Arah three hours trying to solo this guy for a third kill that I could record, so don’t bother suggesting I don’t play for fun when that whole time I was getting a whopping zero loot but playing the content purely for the content. Do you want to know what my fun runs are? Premades where we wipe the floor with everything. Do you think “everything goes” when we’re meant to be bursting bosses down? No. If you want to play bad builds, run a dungeon solo or clear it with your party first, otherwise in my opinion it’s just selfish to play with a bad build since you’re not doing it to aid the party, you’re doing it to satisfy your own concept of fun. Luckily for me, fun for me is efficiency so I don’t tend to be detrimental.

As you and I said, just blindly running the meta because it’s meta doesn’t really help anyone., Understanding why, what, when and how helps (to me anyway) makes gameplay and combat a deeper, more enjoyable experience.

And this is why I said “be aware of the meta, why the meta is the way it is….”. I don’t like blindly running meta either, I like to know why things are chosen. For example I disagree with Nike’s use of sigil of battle and forceful greatsword for warriors (especially since he runs premades) so I don’t use them myself because I feel short-term might stacks from forceful greatsword are bad and sigil of battle is a waste when capping on might when it could just be an X%+ damage sigil.

Staff gives you the highest possible dps if you’re fighting a boss with lots of unique conditions on it. It’s also a really nice weapon for fights with lots of red circles all over the place, as it can really save your… meow. ^^

The iwarlock does a lot of dps on high health targets as already mentioned, then there’s perma fury if you have even the smallest boon duration bonus (can be food). Otherwise there’s really not much point to using staff in dungeons. A quick chaos storm can sometimes be beneficial, but expect to switch to the other set asap.

Eeh, I kinda took the meta and adjusted it to my own builds and play style, so I guess it’s a modified meta? Let’s just say it’s close enough to the zerker phantasm, and it works.

All I really need is an idea to make the staff worthwhile for a zerker mesmer, on the instances that I need the staff’s utilities. Its support boon is really very low as I’ve noticed, and if I’m actually pulling it out for support, I’m probably not farming dungeons at that moment. But I’d still need an idea to build it for range and defense. If I want damage, I’m using my other weapon sets.

Staff gives you the highest possible dps if you’re fighting a boss with lots of unique conditions on it. It’s also a really nice weapon for fights with lots of red circles all over the place, as it can really save your… meow. ^^

I’m sure it’ll prove very useful when I solo Lupicus on my mesmer and I immediately faceplant by using phase retreat.

A quick chaos storm can sometimes be beneficial, but expect to switch to the other set asap.

Why yes, I’m sure lightning hammer elementalists love blasting ethereal fields of all things, that OP chaos armour is great when it’s not even going to proc half the time, and if it does it’s just janky boons that do nothing.

The iwarlock does a lot of dps on high health targets as already mentioned, then there’s perma fury if you have even the smallest boon duration bonus (can be food).

I heard eles and warriors are pretty good at giving perma fury and don’t have to screw their builds up in order to do so.

All I really need is an idea to make the staff worthwhile for a zerker mesmer, on the instances that I need the staff’s utilities.

I already told you, trash mob skipping. Chaos storm, chaos armour and phase retreat are all terrible in dungeons (well retreat for the skipping is fine like I mentioned).

ts support boon is really very low as I’ve noticed, and if I’m actually pulling it out for support, I’m probably not farming dungeons at that moment.

Again, what support? A bunch of short-term random boons? Don’t you use your utility bar for your support skills?

If you want to use staff on a berserker build, just run a stock, meta 10/30/0/20/10, 0/30/0/25/25 or 10/30/0/10/20 build, there’s no need to trait the staff, if I were to use it I would use it as a fire-and-forget weapon, dumping a phantasmal warlock then swapping back to sword/sword immediately (or even having my inventory screen up, firing off iWarlock then swapping an OH pistol in before being put in combat) so I have sw/sw + sw/p.

I remember ethereal fields being brought up in the last mesmerised podcast and I legitimately can’t think of a reason why some of them felt that they were ok for PvE when they’re just terribad, I mean it’s frustrating when fighting Alphard and someone blasts the feedback field and there’s a ton of purple shields around when I’m trying to focus on her actual animations. Doesn’t help that I have a freaking max size norn.

colesy.8490:

I’m sure lightning hammer elementalists love blasting ethereal fields of all things, that OP chaos armour is great

Yup. Allows you to tank all the trash mobs, regardless of how many there are.

LH chain does area blind, warriors have mace 5, mesmers have pistol 5 and sword 4 as CC. Guardians have blind spam and binding blade. What would an ethereal field do here? Not give might since it isn’t fire? I find it ridiculous that I barely play my Mesmer and yet know it and its synergies with other classes better than most of the people here who probably have 1k+ hours on theirs.

colesy.8490:

LH chain does area blind, warriors have mace 5, mesmers have pistol 5 and sword 4 as CC. Guardians have blind spam and binding blade. What would an ethereal field do here? Not give might since it isn’t fire? I find it ridiculous that I barely play my Mesmer and yet know it and its synergies with other classes better than most of the people here who probably have 1k+ hours on theirs.

Chaos armor gives blind and protection. Granted you have to be hit for that to happen, and its RNG, but its not as useless as you think, especially with pugs.

colesy.8490:

Staff gives you the highest possible dps if you’re fighting a boss with lots of unique conditions on it. It’s also a really nice weapon for fights with lots of red circles all over the place, as it can really save your… meow. ^^

I’m sure it’ll prove very useful when I solo Lupicus on my mesmer and I immediately faceplant by using phase retreat.

Why would you die because of using phase retreat? Not everyone kills Lupicus in melee, you know. In fact, every time I was in Arah until now, it was killed from range. And phase retreat once even has proven to be useful to the point of me kiting Lupicus while ressing my teammembers (since the others all failed to dodge at some point and were defeated (not just downed)). There are also other fights where phase retreat can be handy (Subject Alpha for example; and yes I know you’re probably supposed to melee it, but we tried and found that killing it ranged is so much quicker and easier for us).

Also, Chaos Storm can help a lot while ressing, as the Aegis is REALLY helpful in getting not interrupted and/or killed with some big hit while ressing. Also, not every party has a hammer-ele perma-blasting fields, you know.

But yeah… from an elitist side of view, staff is utterly useless. After all, EVERY party that’s made ALWAYS has a hammer-ele with them and also melees every boss. Oh, and of course nobody ever gets downed.

Chaos armor gives blind and protection

Riposte is a 1s daze, magic bullet applies stun/daze/blind and then there’s CC the other classes with you have. Protection … if that’s necessary you’ll have a hammer guard, otherwise it’s not needed at all, plus it requires you getting hit first, and “take damage so I can mitigate damage” doesn’t sound that logical to me.

but its not as useless as you think, especially with pugs.

No, it’s useless. And to hell with pugs, the only time I’ll slot in utilities which will help them (and don’t help myself) is when they’ve shown to be semi-competent. Take Arah for example, I’ll roll 4-sig on my warrior to basically give myself the str/disc banner bonuses on a passive because pugs are mostly bad. If their DPS is bad, why help bad DPS when I can go fury/might sig and give myself full uptime on 180 power and precision?

Why would you die because of using phase retreat?

Is it an evade? The projectiles basically fill the room, so if it’s not, you’re eating damage, and multiple projectiles can hit one spot too (note that the AOE will look brighter as two circles will overlap each other) which is instant death.

Not everyone kills Lupicus in melee, you know. In fact, every time I was in Arah until now, it was killed from range.

You do know that retreating away from him just makes him shadowstep?

. There are also other fights where phase retreat can be handy (Subject Alpha for example; and yes I know you’re probably supposed to melee it, but we tried and found that killing it ranged is so much quicker and easier for us).

Oh boy. Count to 2 and dodge isn’t that hard. The only thing you want to watch out for is the teeth of mordremoth (and you just count to two after he does his massive AOE or PBAOE burn). Funnily enough it becomes deadlier the further away you are. The last time I ranged Subject Alpha was like … almost a year ago when I was a bad player playing in a guild full of bads and we wiped on first Alpha repeatedly.

Also, Chaos Storm can help a lot while ressing, as the Aegis is REALLY helpful in getting not interrupted and/or killed with some big hit while ressing

What if you were all stacked and then all went to res? They’d get up so quickly you wouldn’t need that at all. If you’re kiting a boss in circles at range, then well the only thing I can say is “get good”. I did story mode Arah today and went full melee on the mouth of Zhaitan. It literally baffles me that I could evade all of the attacks (I have footage I might upload and stick it in my guide actually) while there were rifle camping warriors with me who saw the giant red circle and still took the hit despite having an eternity to dodge.

Also, not every party has a hammer-ele perma-blasting fields, you know.

Let’s take something like COF p1’s searing effigy. Say someone blasts the time warp and everyone gets chaos armour. Now when the effigy does its tremor attack, would you rather get hit by it or would you rather reflect it for ~50k damage? When it casts its giant PBAOE burning skill, would you rather dodge it or proc protection? When it casts its burning attack in front of itself, would you rather take the hit and proc protection or sidestep/dodge it? That’s faceroll COF. Now go in to Arah. Would you want to proc protection against the abomination in p2? No, not really. What you would actually want is a fire field down so that you can get blast finishers to have longer uptime on group might.

But yeah… from an elitist side of view, staff is utterly useless.

Why? Why “elitist”? How does me calling out a weapon make my view elitist? Do you know what that word means or do you use it against anyone who has even the slightest interest in playing properly? And no, I already told you, it can work for trash skipping in Arah.

. After all, EVERY party that’s made ALWAYS has a hammer-ele with them and also melees every boss. Oh, and of course nobody ever gets downed.

Running with bads doesn’t make ethereal fields any better, and players should be meleeing bosses too, it really isn’t as harmful as it seems if you pay attention to mechanics.

Saturn.6591:

we tried and found that killing it ranged is so much quicker and easier for us).

But yeah… from an elitist side of view, staff is utterly useless. After all, EVERY party that’s made ALWAYS has a hammer-ele with them and also melees every boss. Oh, and of course nobody ever gets downed.

Bolt part is totally wrong. You can’t just pull stuff out of thin air and pretend it’s an argument in your favour. Melee has every advantage over range, faster reses, boon share, condition cleansing, healing, cleave and higher damage. It’s a fact.
Regarding your arah anecdote, remaining the last alive =/ being better than others (cf. Cleric guardians or any PVT spec that stays at range), this can’t count as an argument either.

You should also get your definition of elitist straight. I don’t think you know what it really means. (it’s just an advise, don’t use words you don’t know the meaning of, or words that do not correspond to what the deal is about)

If the OP wants a clear answer, Colesy gave it to him – staff is not a pve weapon as it is less efficient, cripples your party and has no practical use beside well excuted Staff 2 on skipping mobs .

Edit: Colesy too fast ._.

colesy.8490:

but its not as useless as you think, especially with pugs.

No, it’s useless. And to hell with pugs, the only time I’ll slot in utilities which will help them (and don’t help myself) is when they’ve shown to be semi-competent. Take Arah for example, I’ll roll 4-sig on my warrior to basically give myself the str/disc banner bonuses on a passive because pugs are mostly bad. If their DPS is bad, why help bad DPS when I can go fury/might sig and give myself full uptime on 180 power and precision?

Because 1x great DPS + 4x bad DPS is worse than 1x good DPS + 4x decent DPS?

colesy.8490:

Why would you die because of using phase retreat?

Is it an evade? The projectiles basically fill the room, so if it’s not, you’re eating damage, and multiple projectiles can hit one spot too (note that the AOE will look brighter as two circles will overlap each other) which is instant death.

Phase retreat isn’t an evade, but it lets you evade red circles by instantly moving you out of them without needing to use an actual dodge. And not standing in circles indeed helps you to not get killed, which I hopefully don’t need to explain to you.

colesy.8490:

Not everyone kills Lupicus in melee, you know. In fact, every time I was in Arah until now, it was killed from range.

You do know that retreating away from him just makes him shadowstep?

So what? If you keep moving, he won’t really hit you with shadowstep. Also, it’s not a onehit-kill, and you can dodge away (or use phase retreat) and be safe again. He doesn’t perma-shadowstep either.

colesy.8490:

. There are also other fights where phase retreat can be handy (Subject Alpha for example; and yes I know you’re probably supposed to melee it, but we tried and found that killing it ranged is so much quicker and easier for us).

Oh boy. Count to 2 and dodge isn’t that hard. The only thing you want to watch out for is the teeth of mordremoth (and you just count to two after he does his massive AOE or PBAOE burn). Funnily enough it becomes deadlier the further away you are. The last time I ranged Subject Alpha was like … almost a year ago when I was a bad player playing in a guild full of bads and we wiped on first Alpha repeatedly.

Back then, we tried meleeing it, because that’s supposedly the faster and easier way. Much easier. We died. Tried again. We died. So we thought “f…. it, we’ll do it our way”, killed it from range without dying and rather quick. So apparently you are the pro if it comes to meleeing it, we were the pros if it comes to ranging it. Since according to you, ranging it is harder… does that now mean we were more pro than you are?

colesy.8490:

Also, Chaos Storm can help a lot while ressing, as the Aegis is REALLY helpful in getting not interrupted and/or killed with some big hit while ressing

What if you were all stacked and then all went to res? They’d get up so quickly you wouldn’t need that at all. If you’re kiting a boss in circles at range, then well the only thing I can say is “get good”. I did story mode Arah today and went full melee on the mouth of Zhaitan. It literally baffles me that I could evade all of the attacks (I have footage I might upload and stick it in my guide actually) while there were rifle camping warriors with me who saw the giant red circle and still took the hit despite having an eternity to dodge.

Well, what if more than one person at a time gets downed? Would it still be faster? Also, Arah storymode is very easy. Compared to the explorable paths even moreso.

colesy.8490:

Also, not every party has a hammer-ele perma-blasting fields, you know.

Let’s take something like COF p1’s searing effigy. Say someone blasts the time warp and everyone gets chaos armour. Now when the effigy does its tremor attack, would you rather get hit by it or would you rather reflect it for ~50k damage? When it casts its giant PBAOE burning skill, would you rather dodge it or proc protection? When it casts its burning attack in front of itself, would you rather take the hit and proc protection or sidestep/dodge it? That’s faceroll COF. Now go in to Arah. Would you want to proc protection against the abomination in p2? No, not really. What you would actually want is a fire field down so that you can get blast finishers to have longer uptime on group might.

Even if you have chaos armor, you can still reflect the damage. Also, I find it funny, but… AMAGAWD! Feedback is an ethereal field too!!!! That makes it totally useless now. I mean, imagine… CHAOS ARMOR! The world will end.

Also, not every party is spamming blast finishers all the time. Actually, in most non-speed-clear parties, blast finishers are something you won’t see often. Also, usually you don’t use blast finishers while you’re attacking… there are exceptions of course. Like hammer-eles for example. Which aren’t in every party. I’ve actually yet to see one ingame.

colesy.8490:

But yeah… from an elitist side of view, staff is utterly useless.

Why? Why “elitist”? How does me calling out a weapon make my view elitist? Do you know what that word means or do you use it against anyone who has even the slightest interest in playing properly? And no, I already told you, it can work for trash skipping in Arah.

elitist
1. A person who believes that they are superior to others (and thus deserve favored status) because of their intellect, social status, wealth, or other factors.

You prefer being selfish over increasing the whole groups DPS if you think they are bad, even though that would probably be more efficient than being selfish.
You think that a weapon is bad in most situations because you assume that the party-composition of everyone looks exactly the way you run it (e.g. blast finishers everywhere, everyone meleeing etc.)
Everyone who doesn’t run it like you is automatically bad, thus you apparently think you’re superior. See also the last part that I quote from you…:

colesy.8490:

. After all, EVERY party that’s made ALWAYS has a hammer-ele with them and also melees every boss. Oh, and of course nobody ever gets downed.

Running with bads doesn’t make ethereal fields any better, and players should be meleeing bosses too, it really isn’t as harmful as it seems if you pay attention to mechanics.

And again; ethereal fields are NOT bad. Especially considering that in most parties you don’t have a permanent uptime of blast finishers and/or firefields. And a chaos armor is indeed better than nothing, don’t you agree? And skills like chaos storm and feedback still can be very useful, even though they are (AMAGAWD!) ethereal fields. Or wait… better don’t reflect those 50k damage, because the ethereal field will totally ruin the fight and make it half a minute longer than necessary…

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Saturn.6591:

we tried and found that killing it ranged is so much quicker and easier for us).

But yeah… from an elitist side of view, staff is utterly useless. After all, EVERY party that’s made ALWAYS has a hammer-ele with them and also melees every boss. Oh, and of course nobody ever gets downed.

Bolt part is totally wrong. You can’t just pull stuff out of thin air and pretend it’s an argument in your favour.

No, the bold part is NOT wrong. I said it was quicker and easier for US. US. That’s not YOU. Not everyone is pro enough to range it, I know.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

Regarding your arah anecdote, remaining the last alive =/ being better than others (cf. Cleric guardians or any PVT spec that stays at range), this can’t count as an argument either.

I know that. But you can also be the last one alive because you actually didn’t fail some important dodges, you know. And if you are the last one alive because of that, staff is actually useful to the point where you can safe the day, even though Lupicus is chasing you all over the place (zomg; he even shadowsteps!) That’s all I’ve been saying. Stop pulling stuff out of thin air and pretend it’s an argument in your favor, when I’ve actually never said such a thing.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

You should also get your definition of elitist straight. I don’t think you know what it really means. (it’s just an advise, don’t use words you don’t know the meaning of, or words that do not correspond to what the deal is about)

As I’ve already pointed out before, you and colesy both seem to think you’re superior to everyone who doesn’t do things exactly the way you do it. Also, you’re being very condescending, which actually supports my claim of you being elitists.

Miku Lawrence.6329:

If the OP wants a clear answer, Colesy gave it to him – staff is not a pve weapon as it is less efficient, cripples your party and has no practical use beside well excuted Staff 2 on skipping mobs .

OP asked how he can get the most benefit out of staff. You are telling him to not use staff (except in very few cases for skipping mobs). I’m afraid that’s not really an answer to OP’s question.
Also, phase retreat for skipping mobs is a bad idea imo, because it’s not necessary in 99% of all mobskip-situations and it also puts you into combat, thus you run slower and might as well get caught by the mobs you’re trying to skip.

Carpboy.7145:

colesy.8490:

LH chain does area blind, warriors have mace 5, mesmers have pistol 5 and sword 4 as CC. Guardians have blind spam and binding blade. What would an ethereal field do here? Not give might since it isn’t fire? I find it ridiculous that I barely play my Mesmer and yet know it and its synergies with other classes better than most of the people here who probably have 1k+ hours on theirs.

Chaos armor gives blind and protection. Granted you have to be hit for that to happen, and its RNG, but its not as useless as you think, especially with pugs.

It’s not RNG when there’re enough triggers. In TA Aether path, the quickest way to finish the trash rooms are full room aggro and kill all at once, in that situation none of the skills mentioned by that farming drone will work, only ethereal or water fields.

Why do none of those skills work? Most of the dangerous skills are ranged and can be reflected which I would prefer to blind/protection. The melee knockdowns can be interrupted/stability from a mesmer. This doesn’t leave that many attacks to trigger the RNG chaos armor. However, that does mean a light or ethereal field getting in the way but I wouldn’t consider chaos armor/retaliation doing most of the work there if blast finishers do go off. The TA aether path is also not a common type of fight. I wish there were more like it but that is a pretty weak argument at the moment.

As someone that plays all the classes, I can tell you it’s really frustrating when I try to start a might stack combo on my ele, engineer or guardian and I waste a few blast finishers on weak combos that don’t stack. Warriors and rangers can try might stacks to a lesser extent although it isn’t nearly as viable. This is why I try to time my reflects well and tell pugs to stop using reflects when there is nothing to reflect. So many times I see feedbacks/walls when there is ZERO need for them. Those might stacks are helping your group a lot more than the chaos armor 99% of the time. Be mindful of your fields.

Because 1x great DPS + 4x bad DPS is worse than 1x good DPS + 4x decent DPS?

Banner of strength is like a ~6% DPS increase in a berserker group, in a group full of PVT, it’s even less. banner of discipline, well you won’t be doing crits anyway so it’s pointless, so it won’t be 1 good DPS and 1 decent DPS, it remains 1 great DPS + 4 bad DPS. And take a look at obal’s most recent youtube video, a zerker guardian on magecrusher fully buffed deals the same damage as a whole party of full buffed cleric guards.

Phase retreat isn’t an evade, but it lets you evade red circles by instantly moving you out of them without needing to use an actual dodge. And not standing in circles indeed helps you to not get killed, which I hopefully don’t need to explain to you.

Take staff to Lupicus and try phase retreat, tell me what happens.

So what? If you keep moving, he won’t really hit you with shadowstep. Also, it’s not a onehit-kill, and you can dodge away (or use phase retreat) and be safe again. He doesn’t perma-shadowstep either.

The point is that shadow stepping reduces group DPS uptime and is infuriating when trying to melee because he keeps chasing the bads who are ranging.

Back then, we tried meleeing it, because that’s supposedly the faster and easier way. Much easier. We died. Tried again. We died. So we thought “f…. it, we’ll do it our way”, killed it from range without dying and rather quick. So apparently you are the pro if it comes to meleeing it, we were the pros if it comes to ranging it. Since according to you, ranging it is harder… does that now mean we were more pro than you are?

Path one. Guard puts up block for burning, or you cleanse it. Count to two, dodge the teeth attack. Path two and three, dodge the massive AOE attack, count to two, dodge teeth. Is it really that hard?

Well, what if more than one person at a time gets downed? Would it still be faster? Also, Arah storymode is very easy. Compared to the explorable paths even moreso.

If it’s more than two people downed, res’ing will probably just cause a wipe, depending on the boss. Whenever that happens I generally just carry on doing my own thing while they all die since most the times i’ve tried to res I end up getting hit.

—

Even if you have chaos armor, you can still reflect the damage. Also, I find it funny, but… AMAGAWD! Feedback is an ethereal field too!!!! That makes it totally useless now. I mean, imagine… CHAOS ARMOR! The world will end

The point is that you don’t “tank” the damage, you dodge it. Chaos armour promotes sustaining damage, and in the case of the effigy you would 10 times out of 10 just sidestep or dodge it.

Also, not every party is spamming blast finishers all the time. Actually, in most non-speed-clear parties, blast finishers are something you won’t see often. Also, usually you don’t use blast finishers while you’re attacking… there are exceptions of course. Like hammer-eles for example. Which aren’t in every party. I’ve actually yet to see one ingame.

Right, let’s make it clear.

Operating under the assumption that a party is utilising combo finishers, you want a fire field over an ethereal. Would you disagree? Do you feel “tanking” hard hitting attacks and getting protection is better than higher DPS and dodging hits?

elitist
1. A person who believes that they are superior to others (and thus deserve favored status) because of their intellect, social status, wealth, or other factors.

The meta isn’t elitist, it’s not a belief in superiority, it’s a fact that the meta is superior, or would you say “completing a dungeon faster using build X versus build Y” means that it isn’t superior? This is from an efficiency standpoint of course.

You prefer being selfish over increasing the whole groups DPS if you think they are bad, even though that would probably be more efficient than being selfish.

Actually it won’t be more efficient because they’ll be using bad builds, bad rotations and will be eating the floor while I will be trying to maintain an effective rotation. Pugs will just be pressing buttons, kiting, doing whatever. Therefore, me on my warrior going 4 sig is actually less selfish since not only will they probably be out of banner range anyway, but I’m buffing my DPS more so that I can carry the party better, provided I haven’t just ragequit.

And again; ethereal fields are NOT bad.

They are.

and a chaos armor is indeed better than nothing, don’t you agree?

Chaos armour obscures my view. How am I meant to dodge Alphard when there’s a bunch of glowing pink circles on my screen?

Or wait… better don’t reflect those 50k damage, because the ethereal field will totally ruin the fight and make it half a minute longer than necessary…

Phantasmal warden?

^^
IMO this outlines why PUGs are bad… specing for single dps then arguing against any kind of group support. + guardian flame > chaos armor for view obscurement. By guardian block you meant aegis right? Chaos storm generates aegis, swift, retal… “me on my warrior” this just made me laugh. Flat out over generalized statements Kudos!

If youre playing berserker don’t range with staff. Use it for melee support and defensively if you really need it. Because obviously those signet warriors will need the fury/might bounce…

Staff really shines when you have a condition spam player in group or people get downed frequently. Assuming you are speccing for Phantasm damage.

colesy.8490:

The meta isn’t elitist, it’s not a belief in superiority, it’s a fact that the meta is superior, or would you say “completing a dungeon faster using build X versus build Y” means that it isn’t superior? This is from an efficiency standpoint of course.

The belief that efficiency/speed itself is always superior and “the meta” can’t see why anyone would want to do anything else is the very epitome of elitism.

colesy.8490:

Banner of strength is like a ~6% DPS increase in a berserker group, in a group full of PVT, it’s even less. banner of discipline, well you won’t be doing crits anyway so it’s pointless, so it won’t be 1 good DPS and 1 decent DPS, it remains 1 great DPS + 4 bad DPS. And take a look at obal’s most recent youtube video, a zerker guardian on magecrusher fully buffed deals the same damage as a whole party of full buffed cleric guards.

Well okay, I’ll just have to believe you that one, I guess.

colesy.8490:

Take staff to Lupicus and try phase retreat, tell me what happens.

Let’s see… if I remember correctly, it moved me out of circles, improved my ability to kite greatly and even helped saving the day once.

colesy.8490:

The point is that shadow stepping reduces group DPS uptime and is infuriating when trying to melee because he keeps chasing the bads who are ranging.

Well yes, IF someone’s trying to melee. “Bads” will usually range Lupicus, and with 5 partymembers ranging, shadowstep doesn’t matter much. Not everyone is running with pro-groups who know the dungeon better than the inside of their trouser pockets.

colesy.8490:

Path one. Guard puts up block for burning, or you cleanse it. Count to two, dodge the teeth attack. Path two and three, dodge the massive AOE attack, count to two, dodge teeth. Is it really that hard?

If everyone in the party knows the boss very well, then no. But if all the party knows is that meleeing is supposed to be easy, then it’s indeed a bit harder. At least hard enough to make ranging much easier in comparison and also less frustrating. And more fun. Just takes a little bit longer than melee-ing like the pros do it, but at least it’s going down. Of course, in an experienced party it would be silly to range it. But assuming that every party is always experienced is something you apparently love to do when writing down your arguments. On the other hand you keep talking about “bads”… that’s like contradicting yourself in a really weird way.

colesy.8490:

If it’s more than two people downed, res’ing will probably just cause a wipe, depending on the boss. Whenever that happens I generally just carry on doing my own thing while they all die since most the times i’ve tried to res I end up getting hit.

Now it would be interesting to see what’s faster: Meleeing a boss with 3 or less people, or ranging it with all 5 of them.

colesy.8490:

The point is that you don’t “tank” the damage, you dodge it. Chaos armour promotes sustaining damage, and in the case of the effigy you would 10 times out of 10 just sidestep or dodge it.

…

Right, let’s make it clear.

Operating under the assumption that a party is utilising combo finishers, you want a fire field over an ethereal. Would you disagree? Do you feel “tanking” hard hitting attacks and getting protection is better than higher DPS and dodging hits?

Having Chaos Armor doesn’t mean you need to tank. It just means that if you should get hit, it gives you a bit of a benefit while giving the mob that hits you a bit of a “punishment”. And yes, “operating under the assumption that”… but that’s by far not always the case. I’d even go as far as to say that in pug groups or casual groups, it’s very rarely the case. And thus, ethereal fields don’t hurt at all most of the time. Also, if you get chaos armor instead of might, the fight takes a little bit longer. Unless you’re doing speed-runs, nobody will care.

colesy.8490:

The meta isn’t elitist, it’s not a belief in superiority, it’s a fact that the meta is superior, or would you say “completing a dungeon faster using build X versus build Y” means that it isn’t superior? This is from an efficiency standpoint of course.

The meta is superiour if your goal is to break time-records while doing dungeons. It’s NOT superior if you just want to do the dungeon, maybe take a couple minutes longer and just have fun while doing so. Also, while the meta isn’t elitist, people who strongly believe that everything that’s not the meta isn’t worth it at all surely are. And reading your posts, I can’t help but get the impression that you’re one of those people.

colesy.8490:

Actually it won’t be more efficient because they’ll be using bad builds, bad rotations and will be eating the floor while I will be trying to maintain an effective rotation. Pugs will just be pressing buttons, kiting, doing whatever. Therefore, me on my warrior going 4 sig is actually less selfish since not only will they probably be out of banner range anyway, but I’m buffing my DPS more so that I can carry the party better, provided I haven’t just ragequit.

Like I’ve said before; I’ll just have to believe you this one. However, instead of possibly ragequitting; have you ever thought about explaining them what they could/should improve? Of course not all will be willing to listen and try what you’re saying, but many will. Some may even be grateful that you’ve teached them something new.

colesy.8490:

And again; ethereal fields are NOT bad.

They are.

They are in speedrun-groups with lots of firefields and blastfinishers. Everywhere else, they are nice or at the very least okay.

colesy.8490:

Chaos armour obscures my view. How am I meant to dodge Alphard when there’s a bunch of glowing pink circles on my screen?

If it’s an attack that’s so hard to see coming that you can’t dodge it anymore as soon as there are a couple chaos armors on the screen, then the group meleeing it is probably kinda pro (otherwise people would get downed frequently), and thus nobody will be using ethereal fields. Make sense, right?

colesy.8490:

Phantasmal warden?

If traited, yes. Not every Mesmer has a traited Warden, though. And yes, that person is one of “the bads” then in your opinion, but that doesn’t make this possibility non-existent. Also, iWarden doesn’t always spawn where you want it to. Sometimes it spawns in front of the mob, sometimes next to it, sometimes even behind it. Also, iirc Lupicus’ AoE ranged projectiles go in all directions, thus iWarden can’t reflect all of them. Feedback can, and thus does much more damage. Am I missing something?

Last but not least… how are your feelings about timewarp? Will you ragequit if a Mesmer casts it all over your party? After all, it’s an ethereal field too. An ETHEREAL FIELD! No Might, but chaos armor for you. Evil Mesmer.

Wow, didn’t expect this thread to turn into a full on debate.

Soooo in a nutshell, there’s no real need to get some new gear/jewels to boost the staff, as a zerker mesmer. And if I happen to want both weapon sets to be ranged, maybe…instead go for scepter/appropriate offhand?

Arikyali.5804:

Wow, didn’t expect this thread to turn into a full on debate.

Soooo in a nutshell, there’s no real need to get some new gear/jewels to boost the staff, as a zerker mesmer. And if I happen to want both weapon sets to be ranged, maybe…instead go for scepter/appropriate offhand?

There’s no cut and dry answer. Take the last event in the Grenth temple for example, high power chaos storm is your best bet at tagging the most number of mobs as a mesmer.

Ideally, you want to carry every weapon set and switch according to the situation at hand.

Saturn.6591:

colesy.8490:

Phantasmal warden?

If traited, yes. Not every Mesmer has a traited Warden, though. And yes, that person is one of “the bads” then in your opinion, but that doesn’t make this possibility non-existent. Also, iWarden doesn’t always spawn where you want it to. Sometimes it spawns in front of the mob, sometimes next to it, sometimes even behind it. Also, iirc Lupicus’ AoE ranged projectiles go in all directions, thus iWarden can’t reflect all of them. Feedback can, and thus does much more damage. Am I missing something?

Last but not least… how are your feelings about timewarp? Will you ragequit if a Mesmer casts it all over your party? After all, it’s an ethereal field too. An ETHEREAL FIELD! No Might, but chaos armor for you. Evil Mesmer.

It doesn’t require a premade group to stack might. Some classes can stack might on their own just fine. If you are good enough to notice this, then place your TW after the group is buffed up. So yeah, I do get annoyed when a Mesmer places TW down at the very start of a fight when a d/d or s/d ele is in the party. That ele could have increased the parties damage by ~50% for 20-40 seconds which is better than TW. Even better is full might stacks + TW.

Also, trying to argue that anyone that thinks ethereal fields are bad also think feedback/TW are bad is such a weak argument. If you have a blast finisher, save them for something better.

Feedback does much more damage against lupi but it also has a CD. The traited focus is for some more dps/reflects when feedback isn’t available. Even if it only reflects some of them, it will still protect your party/do several thousands of damage.

It may have changed but as far as I remembered Lupi could only be significantly damaged from Feedback if you were all meleeing him anyway. We found the best way to do it was for our guard to watch for his punch animation and me to watch for the self hug.

Staff should really only be used if you’re running around with Kasmeer’s and it looks awesome!!!1one For actual fighting in PvE its meh (you can maybe make an arguement for grouped trash mobs and rupting them but if you’re with a decent group trash mobs tend to die from focus pull and aoe anyway)

Don’t delete your Staves though – WvW and open world stuff is enhanced by teleporting forward.

Lupi’s AOE spray projectiles are only reflectable when they home in on target. They can’t be reflected when they’re going outwards from him. That’s why you need to stack under him, the Feedback bubble covers you then the projectiles bounce off them while they’re seeking you out. It works by stacking under WoR or any other reflect for the same reason.

You should use staff for skipping and thats about it. Chaos storm is ok for an opening skill if you dont need a second offhand. But for the most part staff is useless in combat.

Chaos winds are great for buffing and plaguing enemies with debuffs, staff damage is underrated and it’s abilities too. Wish they had better cooldowns on some the skills but I’ve always had great use with staff.