Guild Wars 2

This is purely in terms of SPvP: I just dont see why staff is useful. Perhaps on condition builds it makes a nice swap weapon, but I just dont see it being useful for power builds. Yet I see MANY people saying how they can’t give up staff. I personally run Axe/Wh Dagger/Focus (a reverse pairing from what is typical I know but it works for me). It feels like this weird hybrid/support weapon that doesn’t know what it wants to be. Just an explanation of why I should take staff is all I need. I just dont see it!

Apart from the AA skill, which can hit for good amount, but its slow all the marks are great. You have bleed+regen/chill/blast finisher and more important condition transfer/fear/ and all that is aoe! Can be traited to be unblockable and to generate Life force. What more do you want

Life force gain from AA and soul marks, AOE pressure from far away, condi transfer, and an interrupt. I’d prefer those over a focus or axe.

As said, life force gain and aoe chill/poison. The condition damage is garbage but it seems to me staff currently only becomes useful as an aoe chill/condi transfer and aoe fear tool.

The marks are also really useful against thieves. Yes, they may dodge through it in stealth or use a teleport but the mark triggers anyways and you can dodge in time before the hits land. It gives you an indication of where the stealthed thief is.

Short answer: 1200 range and marks

Traited marks are unblockable, give lifeforce, can be precast (and with that are stealth detector), can be cast behind you and if placed correctly can actually ignore LOS. Putrid mark and reaper mark also have really good effects. Chillbrains is decent (poison and chill are always useful in pvp). Mark of blood has kinda bad effects but is still a mark.

The 1200 range is importent to deal with pesky kiters, remember we have kittenty mobility.

Also axe is the worst weapon in the game. If you dont want to run staff use scepter (even in a power build) or simply dagger mainhand on both weapon sets…

Range/lifeforce > condi transfer > fear mark > chill/poison

Helps you against thieves that you know will come in close to pop you.

I agree staff feels weak when going up against a heavy class like war/guard, because they do little to nothing to them. But it has its uses against other classes.

Pretty much as everyone said: it is not an offensive weapon as such, but it brings amazing utilities.

• Sustain: regen on #2 + good LF especially with soul marks
• our only chance to escape: run and put #3 (chill) and/or #5 (fear) behind you
• interrupt #5
• condi transfer #4

I usually put 2 and 3 without thinking too much and keep 4 and 5 for more important stuff (condi removal, interrupt, fear for capping/decapping when only 1 tick missing)

Chillblains with chill inflicts vuln trait + cast on elementalist = elementalist cleansing fire passive proc burned immediately.

Same with reaper’s mark and reaper traitline when it comes out.

Staff can do things other weapons cannot.
Ranged piercing AA
Blast
Fear
Unblockable
Ranged LF gen

Not saying staff is great but it fills in a number of gaps in Necromancer’s tool set.

Life Force, it’s our only 1,200 range weapon, low cooldown Regeneration/Bleed, Poison and Chill, a condition transfer that can crit pretty hard and AOE fear.

It has a lot of utility. It might be a slow weapon but the AA can hit pretty hard and building Life Force is crucial which the staff can do well when your target is kiting too much to use dagger or warhorn on.

Condi clear
Interupt
Pretty reliable lifeforce generator
Pre cast marks for area denial and stealth detector
1320 (1200 + 240/2) ranged snare and poison for downed

Its pretty much an extra utility bar that generates lifeforce.

Aaand the fact that axe, focus are terrible while scepter, off dager are just weak weapons.

P.S.
Youre shooting yourself in the foot with d/f. That combo makes no sense as its double melee, the whole point of why a/f somehow works is you have focus#4 for melee counterpressure

Essentially,one story short, Staff is out low-scaling Utility weapon, and source for ranged Life a Force. Which is fine, just leaves much to be desired without a real ranged power weapon, sometimes sknce LB is reduced at ranged. But that could be the intention. In a lot of ways we’re rewarded for being mid-close ranged.

Its a placebo. People dont really need it but they believe they do… because reasons.

spoj is our resident PvE necro master, understandably he sees staff as a weak weapon. Just wanting to note that the OP is talking PvP specifically.

gavyne.6847:

spoj is our resident PvE necro master, understandably he sees staff as a weak weapon. Just wanting to note that the OP is talking PvP specifically.

If axe and scepter were a bit better, I think most people would drop staf in the end.

Tim.6450:

gavyne.6847:

spoj is our resident PvE necro master, understandably he sees staff as a weak weapon. Just wanting to note that the OP is talking PvP specifically.

If axe and scepter were a bit better, I think most people would drop staf in the end.

Oh, they would. If even axe were 900 range power necros would have already dropped staff, even if the axe remains a weak weapon overall.

Staff is a consolation prize for power necros looking for ranged options, and it’s also a consolation prize in condi builds since the staff condi stacks nerf went through at the time of the dhuumfire scandal.

spoj.9672:

Its a placebo. People dont really need it but they believe they do… because reasons.

Thank you for saying this, #StaffSucks

Seriously though, staff does only two things of note: 1200 range, and ranged LF generation. Beyond this, the weapon is incredibly mediocre and if it wasn’t for the fact that our weapon situation is so dismal staff would be mocked for being garbage. As it is now, staff is an easy weapon to just throw onto a build and be fairly confident that it’ll not be totally worthless, but at the end of the day unless you need range you don’t need staff.

The big reason staff has remained on so many builds is because it is the only non-scepter condi weapon and supplements scepter’s awful LF generation, and the rest of our non-MM builds are really squishy and so need to be able to influence the fight without being at dagger range. On any build designed to fight on-point staff is really mediocre, nearly everything of importance that it has can be covered by having dagger and warhorn offhands.

Oh, and let’s not mention that staff is a poorly designed boring pile of crap to use.

Bhawb.7408:

Oh, and let’s not mention that staff is a poorly designed boring pile of crap to use.

;(

I remember when the staff and axe looked so cool as concepts in their pre-beta videos before release.

Staff just suffers from many of the necromancer weapons in that they’re hybrid weapons that excel at nothing. Ranger has the same issue outside longbow and their melee options (shortbow is hybrid garbage, mainhand axe is hybrid garbage that does not cleave as a condition weapon well and is too weak as a power cleaving weapon due to the horrendous autoattack).

I don’t think the staff is bad. It has a clear niche. Of course, it is currently used in basically all builds because of lack of other viable weapons. But I think it is a good weapon even compared to other non-necro weapons.

However: it is boring in terms of animation/use. Especially as a beginner, I just felt like I was putting all my marks on the ground and then AA until the cooldown ends. I would love each skill to feel a bit more unique.

gavyne.6847:

spoj is our resident PvE necro master, understandably he sees staff as a weak weapon. Just wanting to note that the OP is talking PvP specifically.

I was talking about PvP though. In PvE people REALLY dont need it and they dont use it. Completely different situation.

spoj.9672:

I was talking about PvP though. In PvE people REALLY dont need it and they dont use it. Completely different situation.

Staff has always felt like it hurt me more by swapping to it. So i switched to using double offhands in PvP. Much better results and no longer get that feeling of uselessness when i swap to the other weapon set. Honestly no clue why “top players” and PvP “meta builds” still advocate it so highly. The ranged pressure can be covered in better ways without kittening half your build in other situations.

I think it’s simply because the range pressure in core necro is given by the death shroud. Staff is more the defensive weapon. I think it is very similar to the mesmer staff. Despite having already a good ranged weapon (GS), mesmers, including power mesmers do like the staff for its utilities (defensive with chaos armor and the boons from many skills, mobility with phase retreat).

Well, chaos armor is not the defensive utility mesmers use, as chaos armor is kinda garbage.

The real appeal comes from chaos storm daze+aegis and the wonderful tricks you can use with phase retreat for platform teleports. It’s a really good kiting weapon whereas the greatsword has very little tools to cope with someone who gets in your face in melee.

It’s better than any combinations of axe,scepter,focus,OH dagger and running only dagger/MH,condi necro or what is left of it shouldn’t think of anything else so in short we settle down for it. I had short success with staffless condi necro prepatch however.

Zenith.7301:

I remember when the staff and axe looked so cool as concepts in their pre-beta videos before release.

True, back then everything seemed amazing.

Zenith.7301:

Staff just suffers from many of the necromancer weapons in that they’re hybrid weapons that excel at nothing. Ranger has the same issue outside longbow and their melee options (shortbow is hybrid garbage, mainhand axe is hybrid garbage that does not cleave as a condition weapon well and is too weak as a power cleaving weapon due to the horrendous autoattack).

Lack of a really solid identity is definitely an issue, whereas the newer weapon designs have a much more cohesive approach. Though I don’t think hybrid is always a problem, staff has no identity at all, the auto attack doesn’t fit the rest of the weapon, and really the only things the rest of them have in common is that they’re marks. They just don’t go together at all.

Silverkey.2078:

I don’t think the staff is bad. It has a clear niche. Of course, it is currently used in basically all builds because of lack of other viable weapons. But I think it is a good weapon even compared to other non-necro weapons.

The thing is staff has no clear niche outside of its range. AoE isn’t unique to staff, nor do marks have unique utility. The only thing staff has is a convenient package of decent abilities at 1200 range w/ life force.

Silverkey.2078:

I think it’s simply because the range pressure in core necro is given by the death shroud. Staff is more the defensive weapon. I think it is very similar to the mesmer staff. Despite having already a good ranged weapon (GS), mesmers, including power mesmers do like the staff for its utilities (defensive with chaos armor and the boons from many skills, mobility with phase retreat).

Except our staff doesn’t provide any of that. It is no more defensive than offhand dagger, it just doesn’t provide something meaningful we couldn’t pick up with double off-hands.

Sagat.3285:

It’s better than any combinations of axe,scepter,focus,OH dagger and running only dagger/MH,condi necro or what is left of it shouldn’t think of anything else so in short we settle down for it. I had short success with staffless condi necro prepatch however.

I’ve run only dagger/warhorn axe/dagger on power builds since staff was nerfed and haven’t had any issues. The only thing worth mentioning that I lost was range and poison, and poison isn’t hard to supplement on necro.

Well staff isn’t just an offensive or defensive weapon, it’s kind of an all around ranged option for necros in PvP. There’s something about marks that are more reliable and hits a large aoe area than single target projectiles such as dark path, focus 4 & 5, dagger 4, etc.

If you want to reliably transfer condi’s, putrid mark is your best bet, and it actually does good damage to boot. Not to mention it’s 1200 range, much needed when you’re being kited by many classes that will want to kite you.

Fear mark is your best ranged aoe fear option, this is big because it’s an aoe interrupt. And if you take Reaper, fear also chills, so it’s your 1200 range aoe fear + chill. See 2 people trying to revived a downie? Fear mark. See 3 people trying to stomp your friend? Fear mark and revive. Your group just had a great brawl and enemies are low, they’re kiting away trying to heal up and restack, fear mark and you pretty much screw up their plan.

When you’re getting kited and you have no lifeforce to shroud up to use dark path or doom to close gap, staff auto is your best bet to gain lifeforce. Of course when traited properly you can gain lifeforce with all marks. Nothing worse for a necro to be starved of lifeforce.

Of course there’s also this psychological effect where people don’t like to stand in red circles, because it’s hard to tell what they’re going to be stepping into. Necros with staff often lay staff 2 on refresh to always keep the ground marked up. It helps deter stealthers and helps you see where a veiled push happens. It also forces players to burn dodges when they don’t need to, works sometimes so you can setup for better finishing kills.

Lastly if you go Reaper, you’re already extremely strong under 600 range. You want staff to assist you when someone’s trying to play keep away, and honestly that’s what they’ll need to do if they want to survive.

Staff can seem lackluster, but it really is more useful than some think. Of course a lot of the things are situational. But I’d like to be prepared and have these 1200 range options than not. I should mention that a lot of what’s talked about about pro/con with staff have to do with how you’re traited and spec’ed. If you don’t take Soul Marks trait, and probably skipped Soul Reaping altogether, you most definitely won’t like staff. Whenever I run without Soul Marks, I find my marks blocked all too often to be useful.

Also worth noting is that I find staff having good synergy with reaper, even though they’re words apart in terms of range. Staff gives a reaper two aoe fear options, one close range and one 1200 range, that’s two aoe interrupt options. Staff got great access to chill, staff 3 and fear mark. And lastly the condi transfer issue, running a reaper people are likely to want to kite you, staff gives you that ranged aoe condi transfer + good damage to boot. I really enjoyed my beta weekend reaper running soul marks along with staff to be honest.

Zenith.7301:

Well, chaos armor is not the defensive utility mesmers use, as chaos armor is kinda garbage.

The real appeal comes from chaos storm daze+aegis and the wonderful tricks you can use with phase retreat for platform teleports. It’s a really good kiting weapon whereas the greatsword has very little tools to cope with someone who gets in your face in melee.

Chaos armor is not kittenuch as defensive tool for the boons it gives, and is definitely good traited (Chaotic Dampening and Illusionary Membrane) as it guarantees protection. But in my text I was very general “defensive with […] the boons from many skills”. I didn’t include the daze, since most mesmer weapons have some interrupts, but it is good though unreliable.

Oops, we’re in the necro forum

The only reason I take staff is because of the 1200 range. It’s also a better defensive weapon against thieves and mesmers than any other weapon we have.

Jelzouki.4128:

The only reason I take staff is because of the 1200 range. It’s also a better defensive weapon against thieves and mesmers than any other weapon we have.

On the note of Thieves, Reaper’s Mark conveniently covers the area of Shadow Refuge perfectly. I save it for that exact moment just about every time I’m fighting a Thief because it pushes them out 90% of the time. If they just so happen to dodge before I cast it or I was too late and the Refuge ended are the only times it doesn’t work.

Staff is an excellent weapon. There’s no conceivable reason to give it up right now because it brings so many things in one skill set that other weapons do not.

• 1200 range. It brings ranged pressure and helps me engage.
• Conditions. No other necro weapon set brings high range and on demand chill, poison, fear, and a solid condi clear all in one combo.
• AoE. Every skill is an AoE. All of them. This means I can use it to easily pressure groups of enemies or detect stealth.
• Unblockable. This means I can easily deal with any guardians or anything causing issues.

It’s not OP but it’s a very solid weapon. It’s niche is utility. It brings unique and powerful on demand, high range utility. The only thing bad about it is the auto-attack.
If you don’t use staff you are basically crippling yourself, because your other weapons can supplement staff in any areas it’s lacking. For instance, if you want damage and life force, just take Dagger/Warhorn.

I haven’t seen it mentioned here so far, so i guess it’ds not the reason people are using staff, but it’s the reason you should be using staff (at least til we can use greatswords)

Death shroud damage scales from weapon damage and doesn’t take into account the relative power difference between a 1h & 2h.

ascended berzerker staff compared to ascended MH berzerker dagger, my lifebolts hit 66-100% harder if i swap to staff before activating shroud.

even if you have no use for the weapon, nay, you loathe it beyond the scope of mortal utterances; still you must use it. You might as well unslot death shroud otherwise.

It doesn’t hit 100% harder, its around 10%, slightly more once you hit ascended but DS DPS isn’t high enough to warrant having a worthless weapon.

If your familiar with enigner, staff is basicly an upgraded version of grenade kit. If that isn’t enough to justify it in a pvp situation, how about this:

Staff is one of the three necromancer weapons that scale effectively with enemies (the other two are warhorn and great sword).
Pvp is about both 1v1s and team fights, which is why it’s important that your weapons scale effectively. This is the reason just about every necromancer will bring staff and warhorn into pvp.

Dreaming serpent.5197:

If your familiar with enigner, staff is basicly an upgraded version of grenade kit.

Whaaaaaaat.

I have to admit the justification for using staff in this thread is starting to get quite amusing.

The only reason staff sees so much use is soul marks. If it wasn’t for that, I’m pretty sure most necro builds would be D/WH + D/D, or maybe D/WH + A/D if you’re feeling frisky. Come to think of it, we only have like 3 valid weapon sets.

Pretty well designed- GS, Warhorn, OH Dagger

Good numbers, but incredibly boring- MH Dagger

Mediocre (but your other options are limited)- Staff

Bottom of the garbage can (guardian shield tier)- Scepter, Axe, Focus

Soul marks and putrid marks are basically the reason (outside of range, kinda) that you use staff…

Hell in Reaper beta I got so close to just using Axe/Dagger with my GS but I ended up needing soul marks and of course, the more reliable condition clear. Beyond the slight selfish utility, though the staff is rather boring and unimpactful.

Urug.2543:

The only reason staff sees so much use is soul marks. If it wasn’t for that, I’m pretty sure most necro builds would be D/WH + D/D, or maybe D/WH + A/D if you’re feeling frisky. Come to think of it, we only have like 3 valid weapon sets.

Pretty well designed- GS, Warhorn, OH Dagger

Good numbers, but incredibly boring- MH Dagger

Mediocre (but your other options are limited)- Staff

Bottom of the garbage can (guardian shield tier)- Scepter, Axe, Focus

Could anyone elaborate on how dagger off hand is considered good at all? Dagger 4 seems way to slow of a projectile to be an accurate condition transfer (keep in mind pvp, where short intense burns are a thing) while dagger 5 is lackluster for it’s cooldown and suuuuuuper long aftercast. (For only 3 more seconds of weakness than staff…)

I wouldn’t consider OH dagger good, so much as useable. No one is going to waste their dodge on d4, if they do enjoy the free win, so really all it is is a slightly slower transfer than Putrid Mark, but even then we’re talking like half a second to a second longer. And dagger 5 has weakness, which staff has none of unless you save two of your abilities specifically for a pretty weak combo.

Staff helps In: making enemie waste dodge/position ur enemies some what

If u combine it with wells u basically gain control of territory by shoving all ur aoe into it

Can use to slow people from coming to you with 3 and 5
Can be used as thief/Mesmer alert by precasting on/around your position
5is good for interrupting stomp on your down teammates

Also because when u place it- stuff happens no projectile traveling time, no fancy animation to be seen, gets people almost every time unless they be dodging which in that case=Profit because they wasted dodges and u have easier time landing ur other skills

Lots of staff hate, here.

First, staff dps is low because Necro is a melee job and dps is intended to fall off with distance… for Necromancer, not other professions.

Second, staff has been nerfed for conditions, somewhat buffed in power AoE, and had 4 traits combined into one. It’s design is archaic in game years but it has had attention.

Third, other options for ranged weapons both have problems. Scepter is a completely condition weapon having no synergy with any other and axe forces players to take lower dps because of its awesome and largely unnecessary vulnerability application.

Fourth, staff is the only 2H weapon for use in transforms like Lich.

Staff is the only 1200 weapon for a profession with a flakey Dark Path and Spectral Grasp as its only closers. Wells are 1200, too, but do not generate LF.

If you just want to camp point in PvP, don’t use staff. You don’t need it when everyone comes to you. There is other content where, for a profession that is always one of the last to arrive at a fight, the reach of staff helps get credit before the fight is over.

Staff needs a refresh, as do scepter and axe, but please don’t waste our time complaining about it in game modes where it is unnecessary. Complain, instead, about staff not being good enough for ranged combat.

I have been asking for a singe-target ranged staff replacement for a couple of years. Staff’s AoE holds it back as a power weapon and its AA power and blast hold it back as a condi weapon.

The range.

In PvP with no active defense and no mobility and no healing in shroud it’s harder to peel for us so the range is needed. Against good teams you’ll just be focused and a free kill if you can’t atleast fight from a distance in some parts of fights. Axe range is just too small.

And Soul Marks.

spoj.9672:

In PvE people REALLY dont need it and they dont use it.

When I was still playing PvE (pre lupicus), I had this necro guildmate that used staff and staff only, playing “support” (freaking dead weight)… But oh well, who was I to say so ? A cleric necro playing as backup tank. Aaah, those awful old days…

spoj.9672:

Its a placebo. People dont really need it but they believe they do… because reasons.

lol, look at that, a PvE hero…….. Well you know there are more game modes available where different weapons have there uses. maybe you should read a few of the posts here explaining that. omg these kids today…………..

Dreaming serpent.5197:

If your familiar with enigner, staff is basicly an upgraded version of grenade kit. If that isn’t enough to justify it in a pvp situation, how about this:

Staff is one of the three necromancer weapons that scale effectively with enemies (the other two are warhorn and great sword).
Pvp is about both 1v1s and team fights, which is why it’s important that your weapons scale effectively. This is the reason just about every necromancer will bring staff and warhorn into pvp.

lol better grenade kit, you people are on some strong psychotropics.

Everyone in this thread is either hating on staff or praising it.

When it’s really just in between. It’s not great but it will do with what he have access to.

mordran.4750:

spoj.9672:

Its a placebo. People dont really need it but they believe they do… because reasons.

lol, look at that, a PvE hero…….. Well you know there are more game modes available where different weapons have there uses. maybe you should read a few of the posts here explaining that. omg these kids today…………..

Just because im known to play and primarily focus on PvE doesnt mean i dont play or understand PvP. I admit i dont really touch it much anymore because its boring to me. But there were times when i played it seriously in a team environment (all “PvE heroes” yet we didnt have a problem rising ranks very quickly).

Reading much of the justification in this thread only proves my original point. Most of it is very weak justification. So it makes you wonder what the real reason is. Its not because staff is good. Its because we dont have a whole lot of choice of good weapons. Ive had far better success with double offhands or simply never switching away from dagger/warhorn. Which really says a lot about the state of staff. If it screws you over by switching to it and getting stuck on it for too long. Then theres clearly an issue.

ps. Since the game is clearly balanced around PvP. Its quite important that i have an understanding of PvP so i can relay PvE balance suggestions which also keep PvP in mind. I like how being associated as a top end PvE player makes me automatically clueless about other gamestypes.

It would be okay if staff was as it is now in pve, if we actually had a ranged dps option.

Also an other strong point of staff. It doesnt matter what stat combo you run (also zerker, cele etc.), you always can take it in your build and it doesnt suck. Infact it is our best weapon for celestral amulet, since it is the only weapon that actually can use all the stats to a decent degree. It is essentally an allrounder weapon.

I wont say that staff is an amazing weapon (it certainly has its flaws) but all those people who say staff is bad in pvp just hate it…

You can take it with any stat combo because either way you’re not doing any damage with it lol. It’s both a terrible power and condition weapon damagewise, you just bring it for the aoe fear/condi transfer and occasionally chillblains.

Zenith.7301:

You can take it with any stat combo because either way you’re not doing any damage with it lol. It’s both a terrible power and condition weapon damagewise, you just bring it for the aoe fear/condi transfer and occasionally chillblains.

This is exactly the point Arenanet is making. Necromancer ranged damage is not supposed to equal other professions. Lower mobility and lower ranged damage are the trades for higher melee sustain.

No one here will claim Necro staff is as good as Ele staff. If you want it improved, explain why, in the context of Necromancer’s design.

Anchoku.8142:

Zenith.7301:

You can take it with any stat combo because either way you’re not doing any damage with it lol. It’s both a terrible power and condition weapon damagewise, you just bring it for the aoe fear/condi transfer and occasionally chillblains.

This is exactly the point Arenanet is making. Necromancer ranged damage is not supposed to equal other professions. Lower mobility and lower ranged damage are the trades for higher melee sustain.

No one here will claim Necro staff is as good as Ele staff. If you want it improved, explain why, in the context of Necromancer’s design.

But necromancer doesn’t have higher melee sustain. Last I checked in the entire history of the game the necromancer has never been a frontline melee class and out of all the bunkers that have ever been meta, it was guardian/engineer/ele/BM ranger bunkers, not necromancers.

You people need to understand the difference between a damage sponge and a long term sustain class. A necromancer is much easier to train for a team than a mesmer/thief/elementalist, that’s why historically they’ve been the first target to hit by teams.