Consensus on staff for open world PVE?
Complete and total garbage, it’s close to the lowest damage weapon in the entire game. Only use it for healing (I equip it during the tower-phase of dragon’s stand) or for movement, like gathering dailies.
I get away using it in a condi build. Rampager/sharpened edges/sigils of earth&geo/primal echoes/ancient seeds. Its not axe/sword/torch but it brings other things to the table.
But that’s beside the point that anyone will tell you anything works in openworld anything.
Staff has a few places where it works well, but i cant think of a build that revolves around it.
In a power build, the damage is not spectacular, but the fact that the damage is not a projectile gives us a weapon that is consistent at long range, which is something that we didn’t have before. It doens’t work terribly well in condition builds, however solarbeam is really efficient at procing sharpened edges, which is worth noting. Other than that, the staff is the best way for keeping CAF topped off, has good mobility which doesn’t require any camera movement, and has the most convenient way for us to block projectiles.
All in all, i wouldn’t use a build based around the staff, but i do think that it makes a good second weapon in alot of builds where you don’t have to min-max your build.
Basically its my go to weapon when I want to farm nodes… Just GS and Staff 3 all over the map moving at decent speed with perma swiftness… warrior might be slightly faster but <3 ranger…
Staff is ok in open world PvE because :
- auto attack pierce and can’t be reflected.
- on a crit build you can take advantage of the auto attack to keep your pet at 25 might stack H24 (thanks to Companions might) or add some bleed to your damages thanks to Sharpened edge.
- Ancestral grace (overall, a usefull skill)
No core profession should be balanced around an optional elite specialization.
can’t be reflected.
I can’t immediately think of a single PvE enemy that reflects.
can’t be reflected.
I can’t immediately think of a single PvE enemy that reflects.
Some earth elementals can activate a reflecting aura, and some variations of chak can activate a reflecting shield.
That being said the non-reflectable attacks are mainly useful for pvp and wvw.
Also the fire (?) trolls will reflect damage. They aren’t called fire trolls, but off the top of my head I don’t remember the actual name.
And just remembered the veteran rock dog thingy that is part of the Maguuma invasion in one of the Charr regions. If you don’t notice it happening, it kills you quick.
(edited by redcomyn.4651)
Also the fire (?) trolls will reflect damage. They aren’t called fire trolls, but off the top of my head I don’t remember the actual name.
And just remembered the veteran rock dog thingy that is part of the Maguuma invasion in one of the Charr regions. If you don’t notice it happening, it kills you quick.
Destoryer Trolls have fire shield and ascalonian fighters have firey block so they don’t count ;-(
I’ve almost killed my ranger a few times using rapid fire on the ghosts, that burning is nasty.
staff skill #2 … idk
staff skill #4 (although it looks cool) doesn’t have much use for me.
staff skill 5… cool Idea.. but I wish it was completely replaced. I never use it.
staff skill #3, is awesome.
staff skill #2 … idk
staff skill #4 (although it looks cool) doesn’t have much use for me.
staff skill 5… cool Idea.. but I wish it was completely replaced. I never use it.staff skill #3, is awesome.
Staff if a PvP weapon so it’s not surprising you don’t find it very useful in open world. Skill 5 is very powerful in a competitive environment. And apparently in the new raid as well.
staff skill #2 … idk
staff skill #4 (although it looks cool) doesn’t have much use for me.
staff skill 5… cool Idea.. but I wish it was completely replaced. I never use it.staff skill #3, is awesome.
Staff 5.. are you joking? Combined with Quick Draw particularly or unbuffed, this skill is fantastic in fractals and HoT. Quite a few OW champs and bosses, too. It’s not just a projectile absorb, it’s a decent length water field which can be procced with 3 for area healing, don’t forget the various leaps, projectiles and other blasts we can combo into it.
Skill 1 desperately needs to be replaced with wisp since that pierces on it’s journey too. It’s basically Just as good as skill 1 but also circles the target meaning we can heal allies and proc our flanking traits while damaging enemies. Staff would then need a new 2.
Skill 3, I still feel that 3 needs a damage/buff/debuff component to give it verstatility but otherwise it’s great.
Skill 4 needs more damage or a significantly reduced cast time. Given that it also has along journey time, I think it should be pretty much insta-cast.
In PvE Staff is a mixed bag. It’s damage is low but it’s utlity makes up for that in enough places to warrant it’s use. To be honest I’ve been using staff since HoT launch and I’m struggling to switch to another secondary weapon. I want to use shortbow in my mad-king/ancient seed build but the sustain and utility of Staff keeps drawing me in. Especially when fighting those thriced darned perma-evading frogs of death in HoT.
Staff 5.. are you joking? Combined with Quick Draw particularly or unbuffed, this skill is fantastic in fractals and HoT. Quite a few OW champs and bosses, too. It’s not just a projectile absorb, it’s a decent length water field which can be procced with 3 for area healing, don’t forget the various leaps, projectiles and other blasts we can combo into it.
The waterfield is good. The projectile absorb part is pretty bad, and that’s the part that needs improvement.
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Using the staff is a lot like watching grass grow. Really boring, and not much in the way of damage.
You do damage while watching grass grow?
That’s my point!
Staff 5.. are you joking? Combined with Quick Draw particularly or unbuffed, this skill is fantastic in fractals and HoT. Quite a few OW champs and bosses, too. It’s not just a projectile absorb, it’s a decent length water field which can be procced with 3 for area healing, don’t forget the various leaps, projectiles and other blasts we can combo into it.
The waterfield is good. The projectile absorb part is pretty bad, and that’s the part that needs improvement.
What do you find to be bad about the projectile absorb? I can see that the healing bolts could do with being better at landing, maybe the shield wall could be higher.
Other than that I find the cooldown/uptime pretty good.
I agree that the staff is weak generally and pretty boring, but I feel it’s not far from being good. I admit that it probably doesn’t help that the shortbow is in a pretty bad place too, which is why I find the two competing. They could both do with being better.
in open world PvE the only rule is bring what you like.
I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.
i say its fast enough , when you use it in the correct manner (quickness with healing stats)
ontop of that the main damage source condi with sun spirit makes that AA or any staff skill deal some hefty burn damage with bleeds ect.
the only thing staff 4 needs really is the vines becomming a wall and the vines stay on the field for atleast 1.5-2seconds , the staff needs some built in Mobility CC so that other specs or weapon combinations can be more viable , rather than relying on ancient seeds and a immobo pet/Entangle for a immobo condi which can just be cleansed off.
the staff doesn’t have any Hard CC for Area control/prevention of movement on a Multi person basis (excluding Entangle which is just a condition) .
a Real vine wall can allow a druid to cast up a Tempory wall which doesn’t block Los but stops movement over it , to protect / give allies a chance / cleave or +_1 add-ons from entering the area to counter stomps or resurrections.
Eles have magntic auras/earth wall ect
mesmers have Vail and Into the Void on temporal curtain for a Hard CC with a decend cooldown.
DH has LB 5 entrapping foes for a set duration and acts as a Hard CCx5 or once per Barrier.
if you are getting what im saying most classes have atleast one skill that Prevents movement to and from a area unless the dodge through or shoot through it.
it would be a very nice Addition in WvW using Vine surge as a Wall to Seperate / split people up as a extra role choice for a CC focused build which most Druids are support/CC+damage second. in this case (without having to resort to LB or off-hand Axe for a Hard CC pull or knockback) this additon make other weapon sets just that little more Warrented for use with staff.
(edited by Zenos Osgorma.2936)