Guild Wars 2

Has anyone tried Staff with Sharpened Edges in beta?

It only just occurred to me, but if you have 100% crit chance, the auto attack should be able to stack quite some bleeds. Staff hits 3 times every 1.25 seconds and Sharpened Edges has a 66% chance to apply 3s bleed on crit.

Since this requires the Skirmishing line and it comes with Hunter’s Tactics, you’d still want to be flanking for the 10% more crit chance, but at least you’d still be stacking bleeds, unlike shortbow.

Staff + Shortbow could be a thing, especially with Ancient Seeds. So, Druid might already have access to a condi spec and doesn’t need things like burning on auto-attack.

I remember there being a topic about Shortbow + Ancient Seeds, but did that build also use Staff?

It sure did, well the build I posted did anyway. It think it is going to be pretty good, but the Staff still needs different condis on it, a single condi does not a condi build make.

There was one Nike made called Druid Mad Seeds and this is pretty similar, but more condi removal and rampager gear so you can get near 100% crit.
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJAWVn0rClsiNrAWsCUtgl8AD+uuXHsLBgSwpjZD07OBlsi0A-TFSFABrpLYQlgLcBAab/BAeCAcfIAOU9nlU+RKA7WAA-w

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

a single condi does not a condi build make.

:D

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

There was one Nike made called Druid Mad Seeds

Yeah that’s the one I meant. And I found the topic, but it didn’t use staff:
http://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/professions/ranger/Build-MAD-SEED-DRUID-a-selfish-druid

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vNAQJAWVn0rClsiNrAWsCUtgl8AD+uuXHsLBgSwpjZD07OBlsi0A-TFSFABrpLYQlgLcBAab/BAeCAcfIAOU9nlU+RKA7WAA-w

Yep, this looks like a good condi staff build. Did you try something like this in the beta and did it work well?

“Celestial Avatar healing is the best available by a decent margin right now. One issue that came up is that the healing coefficients are so insignificant that running with healing stats yields very little reward.
The best healing in the game being available without using any healing power; this is not good for the game.”

Other than the Rabid+Apoth accessories (which offer really low healing) you can’t get precision, condition damage, and healing power on the same weapons or gear. It depends on how much they nerf the healing but it doesn’t sound like it will be worth running.

Really? Who cares about healing, even if that’s what druid is supposed to do? It has other advantages like Daze and Ancient Seeds and Staff autoattack hitting often from 1200 range and ignoring all the new reflect/destroy. If one trait can take advantage of multiple hits, it’s Sharpened Edges. Staff can just keep stacking bleed if you have a high enough crit chance and good bleed condi duration. Don’t even have to flank for it.

Got to take advantage of the strengths it has, but you don’t have to take advantage of all of them at the same time. You don’t have to use Celestial Form.

I’m just not seeing the advantage in running it. For full condi I’d rather go S/T A/D, if I did want to pull off some crit bleed build for a weapon without condi damage I’d probably run sinister with longbow so the weapon packed a punch. Plus you could engage from a greater range, and proc ancient seeds off PBS. The bleeds might be a little less but the direct damage would likely result in more dps.

Without more condi’s the staff is just underwhelming and depending on how the healing coefficient changes it may end up being worthless without healing power.

You could very well be right, but I think it’s worth looking into.

S/T A/D is short range which can be pretty dangerous or you’re simply outranged. Staff has 1200 range. Staff would also have another weapon set as well.

Longbow projectiles will be reflected and destroyed and the expansion will introduce a lot more of those. Even if that’s not the case, Staff might hit more often than Longbow on average anyway.

So Staff brings the combination of hitting very reliably and very often from long range.

If this works out well, then Staff is a very versatile weapon and maybe even an upgrade to shortbow in terms of bleed application (no flanking required and more reliable hits), range and mobility (Ancestral Grace).

I doubt it will be worthless, Lunar Impact will still be good and with all the CC you already have, Natural Convergence will too. Plus, you have a condi remove on a 1s CD, that’s worth it by itself. For me, it depends on whether or not they nerf Ancient Seeds more. If they added a short burn to the AA on Staff, it would be a very good build imo and you could even use the same armor set for dungeon condi build, Sinister Balthazar. Well, that’s what I would do. Quite nice stats like this, not as much crit chance, though… Rabid weapons, Sinister armor, celestial trinkets.

It would just be a different way to play, I think it would be fun, would certainly stack a lot of bleeds and be quite decent sustain.

You could probably run full Celestial with it and go hybrid with decent bleed stacks as well as being very sustainy. If a few things get changed, this would be great. I’ll make a set of celestial for my Ranger soon I think and it will definitely have the MK runes on it, probly give this a try. MDG may actually work ok with it, you’d have the burst healing to save yourself. VERY strong under 50% health. Only issue there is Enlargement removing CAF, hopefully that gets fixed. Roaming build though really.

Heimskarl Ashfiend.9582:

I doubt it will be worthless, Lunar Impact will still be good and with all the CC you already have, Natural Convergence will too. Plus, you have a condi remove on a 1s CD, that’s worth it by itself. For me, it depends on whether or not they nerf Ancient Seeds more. If they added a short burn to the AA on Staff, it would be a very good build imo and you could even use the same armor set for dungeon condi build, Sinister Balthazar. Well, that’s what I would do. Quite nice stats like this, not as much crit chance, though…

It would just be a different way to play, I think it would be fun, would certainly stack a lot of bleeds and be quite decent sustain.

You could probably run Celestial with it and go hybrid with decent bleed stacks as well as being very sustainy. If a few things get changed, this would be great. I’ll make a set of celestial for my Ranger soon I think and it will definitely have the MK runes on it, probly give this a try. MDG may actually work ok with it, you’d have the burst healing to save yourself. Roaming build though really.

Yeah burning added to auto, bleeds/poison added to vine surge would make a huge difference. Bleeds on their own without a cover condition just seems mediocre. I could be wrong though, we’ll have to wait and see.