Staff....does it seem weak?

Staff....does it seem weak?

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Posted by: vanderwolf.7084

vanderwolf.7084

so I want to start by saying yes I know marks are kitten potent in condition builds.

And that marks 3,4,5 are pretty good with flat damage builds as well.

My question is….

1.) mark of blood, why is the flat damage aspect of it so incredibly low compared?

And 2.) does staff auto attack on necro seem weak to anybody else?

My necro has more power than my ele. And the tooltip says fireball and necrotic have similar damage, but fireball does almost double of necrotic grasp.

It’s incredibly underwhelming compared to most other weapons attacks. Even Mesmer staff.

Is it perhaps just the enemies in attacking with it?

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Posted by: Silverkey.2078

Silverkey.2078

Staff is not really a damage weapon. It is a utility weapon:

  • LF from #1
  • regen from #2
  • poison/chill from #3
  • condition transfer from #4
  • fear from #5

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Posted by: vanderwolf.7084

vanderwolf.7084

The same could be said of Mesmer staff yet the auto attack on that packs a bunch when it bounces

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Posted by: zapv.8051

zapv.8051

Used to be that it didn’t deal good damage, now that chill deals damage, it is pretty good.

Necros don’t have reflects, invulns, vigor, blocks,
extra dodges, real stability, mobility skills,
burst skills, sustain, or good support. GG ANET.

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Posted by: Bhawb.7408

Bhawb.7408

It is weak. It has decent utility in condi builds if you need utility, but even a lot of condi builds don’t run it anymore (PvE goes scepter plus two offhands). While yes it offers “utility”, a lot of its utility is pretty mediocre, or easily replaceable, and it deals less direct damage on every single mark combined than a power weapon does in a single of its larger hits.

Its an okay weapon in certain situations, but overall extremely mediocre and really only sees use because we have really mediocre ranged/utility options in general.

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Posted by: Oh My God.8423

Oh My God.8423

Apart from being nice to look at and good for general AoE trash and has 1200 range, Staff is slightly weak. I use Scepter these days for heavy duty condi damage.

I agree that Scepter with 2 offhands is a better deal.

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Posted by: DEATHsCLAW.1978

DEATHsCLAW.1978

necro staff is a very well designed weapon and has some good utility and the trait option takes this even further
the overall damage is just nowhere.. the autoattack is the weakest in the game by far! the damage is kitten… sorry but thats the truth.. any ranged weapon in the game (ranger LB and staff, rev hammer, …) does almost twice the damage on autoattack than nercotic grasp.. and bc marks dont provide any sustained damage on a power build the damage could almost be doubled whithout making this thing OP at all

on top of that I have never seen any less reliable projectile in the game.. if the opponent simply moves left and right this thing misses 80% of the time.. and bc of the slow attack rate and projectile speed spectral grasp almost never hits in pvp..

if they fix the autoattack mark of blood wont need more damage..

so Id say if they fix the projectile like deathshroud#1 and add a flat 75-100% dmg increase it will be fine

(edited by DEATHsCLAW.1978)

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Posted by: Blaine Tog.8304

Blaine Tog.8304

The Staff’s damage is indeed pretty weak. You take it if you need the utility or the range, or if having unlockable attacks is important.

I main Ele and Necro, though I have an alt of each profession at level 80.
How to Condi Reaper on a budget
Everything I say is only in reference to PvE and WvW.

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Posted by: gavyne.6847

gavyne.6847

Yup staff is weak no doubt, you don’t use staff for the damage. You use it for the wide variety of utilities, lifeforce regen, and max range on it. Unblockable is a nice touch when traited.

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Posted by: The Demonic Spirit.3157

The Demonic Spirit.3157

I prefer GS over dagger\focus ( MM zerker ) , but I would never force my self to be in melee range all the time , that’s where staff comes in handy. I land all staff marks > switch to RS > swtich to GS > staff .. and so on.
Staff is our best range weapon besides that it’s the fastest LF regen source specially when dealing with 3-5 enemies.

All 80es > MM necro is my best ,cleric
guard ,nades eng ,Trap thief \ranger ,signet\shout warrior, zerk mes\ele & shiro rev.

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Posted by: Azure.8670

Azure.8670

in pvp I love staff

in wvw I adore staff

in pve there is no staff

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Posted by: Arcades Saboth.5139

Arcades Saboth.5139

My Reaper condition build uses the Staff 90% of the time, because when its traited the Life Force regeneration is superior over every other weapon (and, to be honest, it’s good even if not traited). I also run Terror and Deathly Chill that makes Staff #3 and #5 both powerful and useful (which deals damage and decimate break bars).

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Posted by: flow.6043

flow.6043

Personally, I don’t think the staff is weak or mediocre at all.
While its utility makes it useful but not mandatory for power builds, it is easily the strongest PvP weapon for condition builds. Of course it can’t match the single target condi application of the scepter since the torment buff to Feast of Corruption, but that is irrelevant to PvP. It matters a lot more that the staff is faster than the scepter, has more range, more aoe and casting marks doesn’t require facing your target. Plus, the ability to precast marks is awesome.
This might not sound like much to some people, but it makes a huge difference.
Also, Putrid Mark and Reaper’s Mark is easily better than any off-hand you could pair with a scepter. So making good use of skills 1-3 is really only a matter of how you incorporate them into your build and a rotation with other skills.

The only thing I would criticize are the 2 stacks of bleeding on Mark of Blood.
They nerfed the mark from 3 stacks to a uniform 2 stacks in all game modes back in June, in the same patch that introduced the new condition stacking mechanics of poison, confusion and burning, as well as vulnerability affecting condition damage.
Now, 2 stacks on MoB would’ve been fine with the originally proposed damage formula that had a 7.5% scaling with condition damage. This was, however, changed when the actual patch went live to only 6% and an even lower base damage.

The bottom line for Mark of Blood: bleeding is now the weakest damaging condition, yet it is still our most dominant source of damage in condition builds (as opposed to other classes that get more damage out of burning or poison). Also, the 2-stack nerf to MoB was made in consideration of a stronger damage formula. So in light of all that there is no reason MoB shouldn’t be restored to apply 3 stacks again.

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Posted by: vicious.5683

vicious.5683

it’s bad design.

Marks used to be on all weapons, then some genius put them all together in the staff. In addition to a weak and pointless auto attack is what make the staff a mediocre weapon.

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Posted by: flow.6043

flow.6043

it’s bad design.

Marks used to be on all weapons, then some genius put them all together in the staff. In addition to a weak and pointless auto attack is what make the staff a mediocre weapon.

All marks on one weapon is bad because a pre-release beta iteration of our class from 3.5 years ago had them spread out on several weapons?

Also, does anyone here honestly think that a necro without a staff could beat a necro with a staff? Or that a non-staff necro is stronger in general?

I do agree that the staff could use a buff or two, but it is still our strongest pvp weapon.

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Posted by: ragnarokda.1805

ragnarokda.1805

Staff is love.

Staff is life.

In pvp I hate switching to my other set because I immediately miss the utility and, in the case of condi builds, the damage it can put out. kitten, I even camp it in pve on a condi build just for general use because I love it so much. I like scepter but unless I’m fighting one target I rarely think about using it. In fact, my second weapon in a carrion build for pvp is often GS just for GS4-5.

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Posted by: Knox.8462

Knox.8462

Fixes:

- Up the auto-attack damage
- Up the bleed stacks on Mark of Blood
- Revert the changes on Putrid Mark so that it transfers allies conditions again.

Otherwise it’s still a useful weapon.

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Posted by: Anchoku.8142

Anchoku.8142

Staff is a good utility weapon. I would like to see its utility broadened even more.

Necromancer really needs a ranged power weapon, though, but it should not be staff.

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Posted by: Stand The Wall.6987

Stand The Wall.6987

I would love it if #2 got a power damage boost, but its unlikely.

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Posted by: Elvirais.5472

Elvirais.5472

Also, does anyone here honestly think that a necro without a staff could beat a necro with a staff? Or that a non-staff necro is stronger in general?

I do agree that the staff could use a buff or two, but it is still our strongest pvp weapon.

Doesn’t the scepter do much more single target damage? So not for 1 vs 3 but 1 vs 1 scepter would still be better?

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Posted by: nekretaal.6485

nekretaal.6485

It’s weak.

For reaper its terrible. Necromancer could afford the bad damage to get the utility, because necromancer has life blast.

Reaper has no such luxury. You are better off using axe (still the worst weapon in the game) because axe gives you more damage and let’s you use Warhorn.

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Posted by: Ghostwind.4380

Ghostwind.4380

They already tweaked the staff last year, increasing it’s projectile speed slightly after so many complaints. If you think it’s slow now you should have seen it then!

I doubt they will tweak staff any further. The reason is that on paper it seems to do lots of things: damage, pierce, life force gen, and 20% chance combo finisher. That’s why they gave it such low damage and speed. Unfortunately things on paper don’t always pan out when used in the field against actual moving targets.

Personally I’d rather they completely remove the pierce and combo finisher aspects. The pierce is far too impractical to hit multiple enemies (let alone the max 5!) with such a slow projectile speed – in fact it’s almost impossible unless they are a grove of angry trees. For bows, guns, and pistols, pierce makes sense, but not for something so terribly slow. And the combo finisher is a bit meh. 20% chance for something that already struggles to hit? So really staff 1 is a bit of a throw away\something to do while you use marks.

Since it’s a control weapon, I wouldn’t mind if they kept the slow speed but removed the pierce and combo finisher for a small control aoe like a chill or blind. Hard to land, but when it does it slows enemies down. Or remove the aoe and increase it’s speed a lot and add a stronger control on a single target. That would fit more in line with the it’s control utility.

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Posted by: flow.6043

flow.6043

Personally I’d rather they completely remove the pierce and combo finisher aspects. The pierce is far too impractical to hit multiple enemies (let alone the max 5!) with such a slow projectile speed – in fact it’s almost impossible unless they are a grove of angry trees. For bows, guns, and pistols, pierce makes sense, but not for something so terribly slow. And the combo finisher is a bit meh. 20% chance for something that already struggles to hit? So really staff 1 is a bit of a throw away\something to do while you use marks.

The projectile finisher is indeed debatable, simply because a 20% chance makes it too random.
However, those 20% are a standard feature of (almost) any projectile auto attack, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that Necrotic Grasp has it as well. One could argue though that the slower the projectile the higher the chance to combo should be. So maybe a 50% chance would be more appropriate, even 100% wouldn’t make Necrotic Grasp exceptionally potent considering we can combo projectiles much more effectively with the Reaper’s whirl finishers.

In regards to piercing I have to disagree. It is clearly the best feature of Necrotic Grasp, not just because hitting 5 targets can actually add up to rather decent damage, but more importantly it can generate up to 20% life force per cast. 22% if you have Soul Reaping. And that makes Necrotic Grasp have by far the highest lf regen potential of all our skills. Of course you can argue that it’s hard to actually hit that many targets consistently, but it does happen, even in PvP.

Also, does anyone here honestly think that a necro without a staff could beat a necro with a staff? Or that a non-staff necro is stronger in general?

I do agree that the staff could use a buff or two, but it is still our strongest pvp weapon.

Doesn’t the scepter do much more single target damage? So not for 1 vs 3 but 1 vs 1 scepter would still be better?

It does do more single target damage, but that is mostly relevant to PvE.
In PvP on the other hand you need to factor in a lot more than a simple dps comparison. Like range, positioning, precasting marks, utility skills, Shroud uptime, the opponent(s)…
The bottom line usually is that the staff allows you to outplay your opponent more easily.