Guild Wars 2

In the last couple of months, Terror has been nerfed (relates Staff 5), Putrid Mark has been nerfed (Staff 4) and now Mark of Blood is being nerfed (Staff 2). Also if you were running enlarged marks at adept, it was nerfed to be made harder to get. The changes to blocking and other damage negation also made its AoE weaker, as it doesn’t hit as many people.

The staff to me feels, and will even more so after December, very underwhelming. I continue to take it as a primary WvW player mostly out of default, just because of its range and use in stand off sieges. But in other scenarios, it just does not feel impactful in the slightest.

The auto-attack continues to be limp, an afterthought, as you cannot sit there and spam it for Life Force. Staff 4 is no longer supportive for teammates, and Staff 2 often isn’t useful for self regen, becasue targets are far away and it won’t trigger on you from distance.

This weapon is rather weak and incomplete imo.

Does staff now need a buff? And if so, how would you go about giving it one?

It’d be nice if #2 granted regen without having to stand in it and if #1 flew a bit faster but other than that, I think it’s fine (without the upcoming nerf, that is).

As I see it, the staff is a bit of an odd weapon as it seems to be designed to work at both long range and melee. It has nice and quick casting AOEs and #1 pierces (untraited) which improves the number of potential targets the closer it is used. I think it’s a great zerging weapon for the necro, suited for front or back lining.

Personally, I’d rather replace dagger 2 with something a bit less useless.

Speaking as a PvE player it is really underwhelming in PvE, the autoattack is a complete waste of time, both for zerker builds and condition builds, since all the other weapons do much more damage with their autoattack. Mark of blood is a good skill (not exceptional) because it has support with it. All of the other marks on the other hand could use a raw damage buff seen their huge cooldown. And by the way I think Spiteful Marks is a garbage trait. 10% increased damage on something that can do about 3k damage with a full zerker? No way, I’d rather take minion damage or axe damage and cooldown instead. They should at least merge Spiteful marks with Greater Marks or Staff mastery and give us a new trait in Spite.

1) Fix the bug that causes marks to go on full CD.
2) Make Putrid mark transfer conditions off allies, but keep it at 3 conditions per person

They just nerfed it……why do you think they will give buff to the staff >_>

but to the question, I actually don’t think it’s any how OP as a pve player.
Staff1 is rubbish.
The bleed is not better than scepter, but it has regen so it’s ok.
The chill has no place in pve, it’s just a snare and is affected by defiant.
Dagger 4> staff 4 unless it can clean teammate. And the finisher require trigger.
Fear mark, I try to use terror in pve, it’s ok. But unless you run terror, who really need fear in pve?

As long as this game is balanced on pvp, I don’t see them ever buffing staff.

In wvw, I will still run it just because of the fear mark to help escape in some situation.

Bhawb.7408:

1) Fix the bug that causes marks to go on full CD.
2) Make Putrid mark transfer conditions off allies, but keep it at 3 conditions per person

Let me add to that:
3. Stop insulting us by pretending those bugs were intentional.

Don’t forget Greater Marks being moved out of standard Terrormancers range for no reason at all.

Bhawb.7408:

1) Fix the bug that causes marks to go on full CD.
2) Fix Putrid mark transfer conditions off allies, but keep it at 3 condis for other people (should be full on self).
3) If you dont want staff to be utility and stick to this, then beef its base direct damage at 80 to be 1.2, 0.9, 2.4, 4 and 0.9k direct damage respectively to be on par with every other existing power weapon which isnt utility based.

Fixed that for you.

Bhawb.7408:

1) Fix the bug that causes marks to go on full CD.

Per JP this is a bug that will be fixed 11/26.

omg it’s true!

JonPeters.5630:

FYI, the cooldown thing is a bug. We are fixing that for nov 26th I believe.

Staff needs a buff in PvE.

4 of the 5 skills do not hurt Tequatl or Burrows and the 5th is low damage. At the same time this is the classes only long range weapon. Something’s got to give.

It could use a direct damage buff to all marks, maybe even a marginal increase to the life force gained for it to be worth auto attacking for a few hits before switching to your main weapon set. As of now, marks on berserker builds are hardly noticeable excluding putrid mark, even with the 10% damage trait in berserker gear.

The con of this change is that it promotes mark spam even more (I die a little inside every time a necro engages me with a full mark rotation…).

Staff does not need a buff and for anyone suggesting it does in PvE, specifically, is even more hilarious.

Rigel.3092:

Staff does not need a buff and for anyone suggesting it does in PvE, specifically, is even more hilarious.

What is the staff weapon supposed to be? Utility? DPS? Support? They nerfed all support when they stealth nerfed putrid mark and put marks on full CD when interrupted. It barely passes as utility for the same reason. Dps on a staff is already laughable without the added bleed Nerf next month. But no, it doesn’t need a buff. It needs to have all these nerfs scratched out.

First, we definitely need greater marks trait as 10 point adept trait again. I’m sure most of the necros would choose this instead of dhuumfire.(which is why greater marks is nerfed) If it can’t be in adept trait again, it can be buffed up to 300 radius to compensate unnecessary loss of 20 trait points for this trait.(like elementalist blasting staff aoe buffs)
As a wvw guild-raid/pug zerg player I only prioritize aoes. I even like aoes in pve too, killing mobs in aoe massacre is necro’s only fun. More aoe options = more necro fun.

Second, our special cc(fear) is in really bad situation we need a buff exclusive for staff #5 fear to 3 seconds. But terror trait damage needs to stay the same to prevent being op.(2 ticks) Thieves and warriors can use better fear abilities than us. Fear is our special ability, then we need to be on par with these classes, maybe not better but we need same 3 seconds ability. We can’t really support our team with ccs with this short duration, while eles can use 4s stun, warriors can use nearly infinite stun spams etc.
You may tell about spectral wall utility, but ppl don’t walk blindly into it anymore. So it’s not viable anymore. We need our staff #5 to be more viable, because it has an instant effect like ele’s lightning field or warrior’s earthshaker/fear me.

The third is a kinda fictional suggestion, but it would be good if we had a trait to convert staff to a power-damage based aoe weapon for non-condi builds

Spiteful Marks could be better (plain staff damage increase for 15%), but in general staff just needs to be fixed to its former glory.

Rigel.3092:

Staff does not need a buff and for anyone suggesting it does in PvE, specifically, is even more hilarious.

Uhm, on your way to the Guardian forums you have obviously taken a wrong turn somewhere. This is the Necro forums.

What if marks could be self detonated? #2 could be used as AoE regen, (maybe add a water field effect to it too?), #3 could be used as a reliable field, and #4 could be used as a reliable blast finisher!

This opens up a ton of support options for the necro, it’s not like staff is a DPS weapon anyway, wells and deathshroud offer a lot more DPS for power builds, and it’s AoE condition application is pretty laughable compared to what other classes, or even a good epidemic can dish out.