Guild Wars 2

And I still hope for a fix for staff skill on necro… Creators are always talking about balancing this game, so I ask: where?. Necro don’t even have half good skills on staff like Ele does.
My suggestions?

• necrotic grasp -> Dark Orb : Cast a orb of dark shadow that explodes on impact and hits multiple foes.
• double klick mark gives activate skill to makes our blast usable and gives regen to our party when they need it and cast them on world bosses.

Who is with me?

Nice one there activate able mark would make staff much better because the bloody thing don’t work against downed enemies, there’s no reason downed enemies should be immune to 4 out of 5 weapon skills
The grasp/claw projectile is overused on necro and boring, used by lich and dark path imo staff should shoot scythe blades like focus and the attack should bounce between enemies or hit target twice if there is only a single foe

I’m down for anything that would make this boring weapon more enjoyable. Especially since we’re losing Death Shroud with Reaper Shroud, Staff1 is our only 1200 range attack.

Staff is so useful to us but it has to be one of the most boring weapons in the game. I’m down with any rework that doesn’t ruin it.
The dark evil spellcasters of GW2, the masters of life and death, and our main weapon does nothing but put 4 circles on the ground and shoot a slow moving blob of uselessness.

The staff sound effects kind of suck, too. I still use it a lot, though (which is why I find the sound effects so annoying).

The staff is garbage once 4 + 5 go on their long cooldowns.

Until now this has been ok, because necromancers have Death shroud for proper ranged offense. (And a few patches ago, necromancer had a non crap scepter weapon to swap to).

This is a real problem, but the best fix is to fix axe + focus + scepter, so that you have useable weapons with their own strengths and weaknesses.

Also, not enough chill on 3, and too long cooldown on 2.

nekretaal.6485:

The staff is garbage once 4 + 5 go on their long cooldowns.

Until now this has been ok, because necromancers have Death shroud for proper ranged offense. (And a few patches ago, necromancer had a non crap scepter weapon to swap to).

This is a real problem, but the best fix is to fix axe + focus + scepter, so that you have useable weapons with their own strengths and weaknesses.

Also, not enough chill on 3, and too long cooldown on 2.

Yes and no. We all understand that every class needs 1200 range weapon but why necromancers weapon must be the most crappy one?
I know that this solution is not a perfect one but it is simplest one to give us better gameplay. I don’t belive enymore for bigest changes like delete marks and give sybols on their place for example.

I like the idea of change but honestly an orb for an attack? You are kidding right? IT would move slower than the auto attack and be easily side stepped. Besides staff 3 4 and 5 are honestly some of the best weapon skills a necromancer can have. The auto is ok if you aim at more than one target in a line and could use some love the 2 does nothing and should be totally reworked to at least also apply torment or something. But other than that doing a staff overhaul sounds like a bad idea

Besides rober already said on the fourms he is looking into axe and scepter changes. So we know more than likely those will change. We should wait to see what happens with that before we start talking about reworking a staff. Scepter range is pretty nice it just currently sucks. Axe range sucks and skills also mostly suck.

nekretaal.6485:

The staff is garbage once 4 + 5 go on their long cooldowns.

Until now this has been ok, because necromancers have Death shroud for proper ranged offense. (And a few patches ago, necromancer had a non crap scepter weapon to swap to).

This is a real problem, but the best fix is to fix axe + focus + scepter, so that you have useable weapons with their own strengths and weaknesses.

Also, not enough chill on 3, and too long cooldown on 2.

I agree that this is indeed one of the many problems. Axe and scepter first and before anything need to be re-done. Focus is questionable. I think some numbers revolving around cast time, need to be adjusted. Spinal shivers has great range and is good skill for what it does. The Focus 4 on the other hand its very unreliable, hard to see when its bouncing or not, and seems to glitch out very easily.

I think the easiest way to fix scepter is ad a block and counter to its 3 much like the mesmers. Block and counter while gaining life force and xfering a condition or two. IF you are not attacked then just gain life force. * idk this is an example*

The AA on scepter, if its going to stay slow like it is, needs to apply more conditions per hit. 2 bleeds > 3 bleeds >posion and torment repeat (i honestly dont know why the scepter trait does not do this ) 100% duration sucks when you only talk about 1 bleed > 1 bleed> 1 poison.
Just double the applications per hit its the same thing but better.

Scepter 2, well about anything can be done here. More conditions on hit would make an easy fix or just replacing it overall.

To me, the most frustrating part about staff is that the usage of it makes it look better than it is. I just wanted to drop that in here, since it’s a bit relevant and I’ve thought this for a while. Staff was once an amazing group utility weapon with Staff 4, and Staff 2 was at least ‘better’ for conditions. Anymore, it hardly has an identity other than a Utility weapon with a terrible auto attack only good for slowly generating Life Force when you can’t stand to go into melee.

I wish they’d bump the damage coefficients and the bleeding a bit so stats determined the use of the staff, rather than it just being sort of meh across the board. I guess it didnt bother me as much until Revenant Hammer came along and showed that the drawbacks of Staff were pretty much meaningless. Would love my 100% finisher and a bit more ranged damage more than anything. And maybe some condi clear for my homies on Staff 4. That’s about it.

As for the “orb idea”, I don’t really care either way. I just wish it had any other animation. Staff 1 looks terrible.

Honestly the thing that bothers me most about staff is that the role is completely unclear of it. It’s too mixed between power and conditions and it doesn’t do either very well.
The 2, 3, 5 are useful for condition damage, auto attack is useless outside of lf generation.

The 4 and 5 are useful on power builds, auto attack is the only hope of ranged damage outside DS.

Putrid mark is especially confusing, it clears conditions on yourself which is very defensive, then it’s a blast finisher which has defensive effects on every field we have access to, but it also does BY FAR the most damage of any mark we have. So our valuable high CD defensive skill is also our only hope for doing high damage with the weapon? Wtf is that

ZDragon scepter and axe are the seperate topic. I just want to say that 3 years is enough waiting. We get new instances and we need to prepare – and we need this discussion.
I still think that necros needs AA similar to fireball, animation and skill name is the least important.

Giving a +1 to the idea of activating Marks after casting them. Annoys me how they won’t proc on certain structures (like world bosses) and I would enjoy using that Blast Finisher and Regen when it’s needed.

Make the auto apply torment, or deal more damage. Bring back the allied condi transfer from putrid mark(just 1 condi). Maybe make chillblains or reaper’s mark do something for allies. I’d love if they made the 3% lf baseline. Scepter/dagger and axe/focus need buffs first though. They will probably never make marks player activated, you could essentially lay down all your marks and blow them all up with no counterplay unless the detonate had a cast time (at which point the way they work currently would be way better).

Necro staff is so insanely good in WvW they can’t buff it. And reaper is adding another AoE chill to staff.

It’s also decent outside of WvW because every skill hits 5 targets, and it is good at kiting with the regen spam and CC.

If you’re confused about the role staff has, think deeper than power vs condi vs defense. Think gameplay. Staff is primarily for kiting and CC with some AoE damage. The AoE works well because it allows you to kite and CC multiple enemies while wearing them down.

Khristophoros.7194:

Necro staff is so insanely good in WvW they can’t buff it. And reaper is adding another AoE chill to staff.

It’s also decent outside of WvW because every skill hits 5 targets, and it is good at kiting with the regen spam and CC.

If you’re confused about the role staff has, think deeper than power vs condi vs defense. Think gameplay. Staff is primarily for kiting and CC with some AoE damage. The AoE works well because it allows you to kite and CC multiple enemies while wearing them down.

I do agree with you that staff is quite good but the I do think the auto is quite bad. Sure it’s more of a utility weapon but the auto doesn’t even have good enough LF gain to fit that role or enough dmg for being our only long range weapon. Something needs to be done about it. Either give the auto utility like a very short cripple or better lf gain. Maybe make it a 100% proj. finisher. Honestly I would be fine with faster attack rate and a faster projectile. It feels weak for whatever purpose it was made for.

Staff has a bad image with non-necromancer players. The image is created, because:
a) It is very often used by necromancers as their secondary weapon
b) It does a lot of bursty damage

This has given it the illusion of being good, when it’s really mediocre at best.
The reason it’s used a lot is because necromancers don’t have a real good ranged alternative and there is much less synergy between weapons than other classes have.
And the bursty nature is mostly an illusion as the skills have a 20 second cooldown, and if you burst them you forfeit all utility on them (chill / condi transfer / CC)

Frankly I think the marks are mostly fine; but I would really love if we could indeed trigger them manually. It would give the staff a lot more options without really giving much more direct power:
- We’d get an on demand blast finisher so we might finally contribute a bit more to out of combat blasting.
- Staff #2 would get a lot more interesting as you can either put it on the opponent for bleeds or on yourself for regen.
- Staff doesn’t become utterly useless vs structures and downed players.
All good things.

Staff #1 is one of the most boring auto attacks in the game. It’s low on damage and it’s low on entertainment factor. Maybe a chain would make it more fun.

DTATL.9641:

Khristophoros.7194:

Necro staff is so insanely good in WvW they can’t buff it. And reaper is adding another AoE chill to staff.

It’s also decent outside of WvW because every skill hits 5 targets, and it is good at kiting with the regen spam and CC.

If you’re confused about the role staff has, think deeper than power vs condi vs defense. Think gameplay. Staff is primarily for kiting and CC with some AoE damage. The AoE works well because it allows you to kite and CC multiple enemies while wearing them down.

I do agree with you that staff is quite good but the I do think the auto is quite bad. Sure it’s more of a utility weapon but the auto doesn’t even have good enough LF gain to fit that role or enough dmg for being our only long range weapon. Something needs to be done about it. Either give the auto utility like a very short cripple or better lf gain. Maybe make it a 100% proj. finisher. Honestly I would be fine with faster attack rate and a faster projectile. It feels weak for whatever purpose it was made for.

The slow projectile and long animation make it feel terrible in use. Both of these should be sped up imo.

Khristophoros.7194:

Necro staff is so insanely good in WvW they can’t buff it. And reaper is adding another AoE chill to staff.

It’s also decent outside of WvW because every skill hits 5 targets, and it is good at kiting with the regen spam and CC.

If you’re confused about the role staff has, think deeper than power vs condi vs defense. Think gameplay. Staff is primarily for kiting and CC with some AoE damage. The AoE works well because it allows you to kite and CC multiple enemies while wearing them down.

Staff doesn’t need any real buffs for most part. Maybe the #2 could use a nice buff. The bleeding is pretty “meh” for condition specs, the direct damage is also really meh for power.

Making the marks manually triggerable though would be a really solid change that’s not a direct buff to it’s potential; but makes the weapon more versatile in a lot of situations.

Also #1 is just not quite there yet. It’s not about doing a lot of damage. It’s just very dull and easily one of the least inspired abilities in our kit. It doesn’t do burst, it doesn’t do anything special, it’s slow attack speed and slow travel time make it really easy to dodge.

And we have another event with structures where marks do not activatet on them…

I like the marks as they are(ofc additional effects are always welcome!!!, but the AA skill would be much better if its beam like the mesmer GS. Its kitten slow projectile and can be avoided by even strafing.
The only downside is that it will lose the projectile finisher, but its only 20% anyway.
Or make it instant hit aoe, everything but the kitten slow projectile will be better.

Staff is currently in an awkward position where a lot of its power is in reliability. If you cast a mark directly under someone, they have no way of knowing which one it will be and thus no way to know if they should dodge. Since you can do this from 1200 range, none of the abilities can be too strong (the lack of counterplay would make it unfair).

Make it so that marks get cast and go off after a short delay (like, 0.5 sec-1 sec for different abilities), whether or not an enemy is in the area. This makes marks much less reliable to use, and therefore allows the abilities to be more exciting. Additionally, make the little icon display just above the ground (so you can see a green blood drop hovering over the circle before mark of blood goes off, for example).

Get rid of soul marks and just make one of the marks grant LF (maybe make Chillblains pulse Chill/Poison 3 times and give 1% LF per foe hit?).

Urug.2543:

Staff is currently in an awkward position where a lot of its power is in reliability. If you cast a mark directly under someone, they have no way of knowing which one it will be and thus no way to know if they should dodge. Since you can do this from 1200 range, none of the abilities can be too strong (the lack of counterplay would make it unfair).

Make it so that marks get cast and go off after a short delay (like, 0.5 sec-1 sec for different abilities), whether or not an enemy is in the area. This makes marks much less reliable to use, and therefore allows the abilities to be more exciting. Additionally, make the little icon display just above the ground (so you can see a green blood drop hovering over the circle before mark of blood goes off, for example).

Get rid of soul marks and just make one of the marks grant LF (maybe make Chillblains pulse Chill/Poison 3 times and give 1% LF per foe hit?).

Unfortunately, you can’t make them too unreliable as they can be dodgerolled through. 3/4 cast+charge up, you’d rarely hit anyone, which wouldn’t be fun.

Each already has a 3/4 cast, and if they wanted to learn the animations, technically 3 out of 4 are unique. #3 has a greenish glow when casting and 5 uses an entirely different animation.

ronpierce.2760:

Unfortunately, you can’t make them too unreliable as they can be dodgerolled through. 3/4 cast+charge up, you’d rarely hit anyone, which wouldn’t be fun.

Each already has a 3/4 cast, and if they wanted to learn the animations, technically 3 out of 4 are unique. #3 has a greenish glow when casting and 5 uses an entirely different animation.

Huh, you’re right. I thought their cast time was a lot quicker than that- it feels really easy to land them, but that might just be the range. In any case, if they were changed in this way dodgerolling wouldn’t trigger them- it would work more like http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Eruption (but on a much shorter delay).

Staff needs a rework, plain and simple. Once axe and scepter are up to standard staff will be a memory to most builds, and not even a fond one considering how abysmally designed it is.

Urug.2543:

ronpierce.2760:

Unfortunately, you can’t make them too unreliable as they can be dodgerolled through. 3/4 cast+charge up, you’d rarely hit anyone, which wouldn’t be fun.

Each already has a 3/4 cast, and if they wanted to learn the animations, technically 3 out of 4 are unique. #3 has a greenish glow when casting and 5 uses an entirely different animation.

Huh, you’re right. I thought their cast time was a lot quicker than that- it feels really easy to land them, but that might just be the range. In any case, if they were changed in this way dodgerolling wouldn’t trigger them- it would work more like http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Eruption (but on a much shorter delay).

I think the reliability comes from a factor of things. One, most aren’t a huge deal to land, and staff 5 can cover a second mark fairly easily. Secondly, there is no projectile. Lastly, most of them probably don’t feel too mandatory to dodge. The one most necessary to dodge, is in fact the one that shares the animation with staff 2, putrid Mark, which is sort of ironic.

So yeah, not too bad to land, but hardly a reason to feel a bit lack luster. I mean, Longbow on Ranger is easy to land (now, anyways) and can be pretty potent.

I could be wrong, but I get the idea that the potency of staff is held back by he idea that it’s the utility weapon. I think that’s the root of the power issues, because utility wise, it’s actually decent. It’s just that the auto attack blows (Slow, low damage, basically an uninspired Lf generator) and scaling isn’t that great. They should just change #1 to have higher damage and a bit of flair, and give back the 1 bleed to Blood Mark and 1 team transfer back to Putrid Mark and give it its own animation and I’d be perfectly happy with staff.

I actually sort of enjoy some of the defensive plays staff can make, but it could be done SO much better if they redesigned the concepts and made it do more intimidating damage.

They should just give us a second 1200 range weapon and then make staff condition focused and the other power focused (a bow perhaps?). A lack of alternatives shouldn’t mean a weapon is ‘good enough’ design wise.

In any case I agree that something needs to be done to make it a bit more usable.

Marks
- Trigger after 5 seconds if left alone
- Can be recast to trigger
Cooldowns and effects could also be looked at, they’re a touch underwhelming right now.

Auto-Attack
- Increase the damage but make it deal 10% less damage for each consecutive enemy struck
This makes the pierce effect more of a secondary bonus instead of a focal balancing point.

Navi.9308:

They should just give us a second 1200 range weapon and then make staff condition focused and the other power focused (a bow perhaps?). A lack of alternatives shouldn’t mean a weapon is ‘good enough’ design wise.

In any case I agree that something needs to be done to make it a bit more usable.

Marks
- Trigger after 5 seconds if left alone
- Can be recast to trigger
Cooldowns and effects could also be looked at, they’re a touch underwhelming right now.

Auto-Attack
- Increase the damage but make it deal 10% less damage for each consecutive enemy struck
This makes the pierce effect more of a secondary bonus instead of a focal balancing point.

Your idea would gut marks. 1.5 second total cast to get them off, no longer useful at all against thieves or mesmers in stealth, no longer useful for zoning, or forcing dodge rolls. Those along with the uncounterable lifeforce gen are the reason I take the weapon.

The auto needs utility, not damage. It is a utility weapon. A cover condition would be much more useful.

If they want to make staff better, they should add the allied condi removal back to putrid mark (1 condition from allies). Maybe make reaper’s mark give 3 stacks of stab or 5 seconds of protection. Then we would have a real support weapon and they could buff up axe and scepter to be better damage oriented weapons.

Bhawb.7408:

Staff needs a rework, plain and simple. Once axe and scepter are up to standard staff will be a memory to most builds, and not even a fond one considering how abysmally designed it is.

No it doesnt. It may need some ajustments but not a rework.

I like the Staff, personally. Re-making the weapon just because one Specialization trades ranged potential for melee potential is silly. If you want ranged potential, don’t roll Reaper, easy as that.

There’s still promised work on Axe from Robert Gee. Better make it work, might fill the niche.

As for Staff, revert the ally cleansing nerf from Putrid Mark, give it 1 more bleed on MoB and it’s perfectly fine.

Yeah, all the weapons except maybe dagger need a rework as they lack identity. It may work to some extent now because you basicly have 3 weapon sets with shroud that all do a something that works for your build when put together, but most likely that just applies to 1 or maybe 2 skills of that weapon set, making you a sitting duck after you use this skill.

Basicly make staff a long range power weapon. Give marks interesting effects. Just because they are all called marks doenst mean they all just do generic one time effects in an aoe.
Staff 1 : Conjure a spectral spirit to blast the area. It basicly shoots like the Engies Mortar AA, a long range projectile finisher quick cast time, but very high travel time. The skill applies AOE damage and vulnerability, as well as generating lifeforce. Hitting an enemy right with the center of the AOE causes more vulnerability stacks as well as more lifeforce.

Staff: 2 Create a mark at the targetet area, hitting all enemys and dealing moderate damage, the damage is increased by each stack of vulnerability on the target, this skill increases the duration of each stack of vulnerability on the target by X seconds. Standard mark as they behave now, fairly low cooldown.

Staff 3 creates a mark at the target location, dealing damage and a brief cripple, as well as marking the targets for X seconds. The skill can be activated again to trigger the mark, causing a moderate root. The mark can also be triggered by hitting it with Skill 1, causing it to not root the target but create a bouncing projectile originating from the marked target, councing to nearby enemys causing low damage and chill. Triggering a mark consumes it and generates lifeforce for each one.

Staff 4 creates a mark on the targeted location, 1 second cast time. The mark takes x seconds to manifest. Once it gets triggered it causes a fast pulsing AOE field, dealing heavy damage per pulse and applying a short lasting might stack for each foe hit per pulse.

Staff 5 is a special kind of channel skill, the effect of the mark increases based on how long you cast it, cast time can be instant for a smaller effect, or may be hold for up to 2.5 seconds for a massive effect. Effects could be lifesteal at instant cast, unblockable high damage and poison, + blast finisher at max stacks.

Scepter should stay the condi weapon, with improved effects.

Dagger should stay the CC / tanky meele weapon.

Axe should be reworked to be a modrange support weapon, condi transfer, boonhate, lifeforce generation at the 600 range.

My thoughts:

Most of the staff skills are situational and do make for more skilled gameplay; knowing what to throw when (condi clear or chill). My only problem with it is that it is our only 1200 range weapon and as such is needed by most power and condi users alike. The auto needs work though as it can be sidestepped easily and even though it pierces you need to be behind a collection of blind enemies for it to hit.

When they work on the other weapons I would like to see the auto speed upped on the staff by a fair bit myself. Maybe make the marks effect bosses too (auto cast on certain “objects”) as a bonus.

Staff is underpowered. What reason is there to stack a bunch of marks on the ground if they barely do any damage?

Id like putrid mark to blast when its laid down regardless of it hitting anything. Also throw some torment in there somewhere. They added this new condi called torment that sounds like its right up necros ally. Yet we hardly have any access to it at all. I keep telling my guildmate who wants to do condi dmg that necros just dont have access to the good condis other than burning from shroud 1 which only really works with reaper cus he can swing fast to apply it.

Rym.1469:

I like the Staff, personally. Re-making the weapon just because one Specialization trades ranged potential for melee potential is silly. If you want ranged potential, don’t roll Reaper, easy as that.

There’s still promised work on Axe from Robert Gee. Better make it work, might fill the niche.

As for Staff, revert the ally cleansing nerf from Putrid Mark, give it 1 more bleed on MoB and it’s perfectly fine.

Seriously, I love staff. If you guys don’t like it, use something else.

I tend to like it. I especially like how marks work because they’re great bait for stealthers.
To add to the echo, all I really want for staff is:
- 1 Bleed back to Mark of Blood
- 1 or 2 conditions transfered from allies as well with Putrid Mark (semi nerf revert).
- Slight changes to staff 1, adding some power/potency or utility to it. (And better graphic would be great…)
- Maybe 1.5 LF per mark, and a change to soul marks to “double the life force gained from marks”.

I’d be pretty happy with this.

I made these calculations before the June patch. My conclusion was that 2 instead of 3 stacks of bleeding on Mark of Blood wouldn’t be a nerf due to the better damage formula and vulnerability affecting condition damage as well.
However, this was before they changed the formula from (26 + 0.075 cond dmg) to (22 + 0.06 cond dmg). With only 6% scaling the breakeven point for a single stack of bleeding to tick for the same amount as before is with more than 2k condition damage, or at least 1550 against targets with 25 stacks of vulnerability.
Also, it was before they announced that they would nerf the proc chance of Barbed Precision.
Bottom line: our bleeding is weaker and we’re applying less of it.
I actually wouldn’t mind that much if their intention was to lower the damage of condition builds in general, but clearly that is not the case when you look at the rediculous amounts of burning damage that some classes can pump out.

Mark of Blood should get 3 stacks again.

I’d love to see our ‘mark of blood’ be an ‘activatable’ (is that even a word?!) skill that is a teleport… i’d like to see that.
Not saying it would be balanced at all.

Maybe double up our #5 fear mark as a teleport if we activate it, as it is a higher cooldown, and means saving it for the right moments is more of a play/skill cap thing, rather than spamming for terror procs.

I really want to thank You all. Now i know that this problem is much more complex. Simple solution is create trit which makes marks instacast for pve players and rework only Necrotic grasp to more aoe skill like eles fireball.
Chances for staff as a power 1200 ranged weapon could give us only new line of specialization with new skills & trits and then we have chance to get true dps casters.