Guild Wars 2

how do you think staff will be as a weapon? I was hoping for some sort of melee gimmick, since the wiki stats that rangers are melee specialists but something called a druid just doesn’t imply that to me.
Thoughts?

I also wish we would get melee skills on the staff, or if you played kingdoms of amalur, something similar to the staff there, where you mix melee attacks with magic blasts, but I think the druid staff will be spellcasting…

How those spells are going to work, I have no idea tbh, but my guess is that it won’t be full DPS and focus either on support or condition damage to make berserker builds a little less common…

I hope at least the auto and skill 2 is melee.

I’m hoping for wells or some other sort of heavy AoE and/or crowd controlling. Though my bet is on more team support, a-la guardian staff.

I’ll be super excited for either. Based on the current public specializations, I think a-net won’t dissapoint

I actually made a ranger just for Druid. Let’s check the list off of what it’ll not have.

• large AoE circles? Got traps, elementalists, necros
• full set of support? Guardian staff
• unpredictable boons/condis? Mesmer staff
• melee stuff? Revenant staff.. I think.

So scratching those out, and assuming a unique weapon, I’m thinking the staff will offer a decent amount of CC(cripple or slow on the auto, a root, a knock) some form of AoE buff, and I don’t mean some random boon (unless vigor), a mobility skill, likely a retreat(queue staff ele) and at least one super large AoE skill.

If I get a little deranged, I’d imagine a summon of some sort, similar to spirits. I don’t think it’ll be a 1200r weapon, since short bow and longbow already fill that, so I’m thinking skills will likely be either centered on the caster or within -900r.

So says the 1-week old Ranger!

I’d be pretty happy with a 1,200 range staff that, like the elementalist staff, has the range as more an added benefit than an optimal distance. Have some ground targeted skills for AoE so it’d still have a place in close range combat.

I’d like it if the auto attack summoned little spirit birds that flew at the enemy and attacked them, then flew out to nearby allies providing boons. That’d be pretty nice.

I suggested on another tread that maybe our staff skills could change when we swap pets, and we would get a different set of skill for each pet family, but that is also something that personally I don’t think that will happen…

I have a feeling it will be a combination of ranged, ground-targeted and skillshot attacks. I want melee, but I don’t think we’ll get it.

My guesses: a barrier of some kind, something with an interrupt and/or blind, something that on hit gives our pets protection, an AoE slow, a heal, a single target immob… Perhaps something that summons bee swarms or fire ants or other tiny annoying creatures.

Ideally? A water field, a blast finisher, roots that drag people underground to suffocate them or hang them upside down from trees, and a short cool down ability that gives has a bonus effect of giving pets aegis. >_>

as long as its not taken from guardians I’d be ok with it :/ kitten pls no re-colored guardian skills…

I don’t think they’ll ever make a melee staff, only because many of the staff skins would look weird being used as a martial weapon. It seems like they’ve made a bunch of skins with a casting staff in mind. Most of them look ceremonial, even.

I’m really doubting it will be melee at all, mainly because of the skins in the game. Most of the staff skins would look rediculous with any sort of melee attack, so if they wanted to make a melee staff I think they’d have created a new weapon entirely to get around it (like bo staff or spear) rather than have they new shiny explansion look like a tacky rushed out add-on.

Edit: Oh, fluff beat me to it :P

Fluffball.8307:

I don’t think they’ll ever make a melee staff, only because many of the staff skins would look weird being used as a martial weapon. It seems like they’ve made a bunch of skins with a casting staff in mind. Most of them look ceremonial, even.

Isn’t the revenant staff speculated to be a melee weapon, though? At least from what we saw in the trailer. (I don’t think ranger staff will be, however. Just revenant for now.)

I don’t disagree that most staff skins would look silly being flailed around as a martial weapon, though. There’s quite a few that are sleek enough and even ‘spear’ looking, but they tend to be the most visually unimpressive ones.

Dex.7092:

Isn’t the revenant staff speculated to be a melee weapon, though? At least from what we saw in the trailer. (I don’t think ranger staff will be, however. Just revenant for now.).

Oh ya, he does smack someone with it in the trailer I think.

I have to say though, there are a few staves that look like they’d be pretty painful to be hit with in melee… The primitive pillar, for example. (I honestly don’t understand why it has those spikes pointing towards your head while you have it stowed… o_o )

Would be cool if rangers did get melee staff, but I think especially with the spec name ‘druid’ this is one of ANets few opportunities to explore the magical side of the class. The medium armor melee staff archtype will probably fall to the thief instead, if they ever go that route.

If it is melee, how do you think they will implement CC/Support?

Have they confirmed that the staff is support? People immediately speculated that from the second the trailer went live, but I can’t remember them saying anything about how the staff is used.

Dex your ranger is hot.

Thanks! >: 3

I don’t ever think that they ever outright said that the druid specialization would be support focused… I think it’s a conclusion people jumped to based on the lore of the GW druid and “plant based” attacks they mentioned. I think it’s a logical assumption based on the fact that ranger weapons so far have had little group utility outside of warhorn5, but it certainly isn’t a necessity.

They did outright say though that staffs would involve “plant based attacks”, which I don’t think leaves much room for melee there unless it’s the auto-attack or something.

I would consider smacking someone with a wooden staff a “plant based attack” ;-)

Just because the AA would be melee doesn’t mean all of the skills on it have to be. They could put ground targeted or radius abilities on it, the vine thing we saw looks like a skillshot of sorts.

The support could come from either the weapon or the heal/utility/elite skills we get in addition to cc on the weapon.

I really just want a melee staff so we can all be “Beastmaster” clones :p

https://youtu.be/FF4sFVUsvi0

Aerathnor.8305:

I would consider smacking someone with a wooden staff a “plant based attack” ;-)

Just because the AA would be melee doesn’t mean all of the skills on it have to be. They could put ground targeted or radius abilities on it, the vine thing we saw looks like a skillshot of sorts.

The support could come from either the weapon or the heal/utility/elite skills we get in addition to cc on the weapon.

I really just want a melee staff so we can all be “Beastmaster” clones :p

https://youtu.be/FF4sFVUsvi0

Still would prefer a long ranged caster playstyle for the druid staff so we could switch from casting to melee with weapon swap. I just really like the idea of throwing out spells at the enemy to wear them down and then switching to a greatsword to finish them off. Given druids have always run along the fine line of martial and magic this would be an ideal playstyle.

That being said, Daar was the best. I loved that show.

I honestly don’t know anymore. I had dreams of it being area control but that’s a DH thing now. Like the traps they have function exactly how I thought Druid’s versions of wards were going to function.

Something tells me Druid will be 100% team support and they will still try to sell it as awesome.

100% team support would be garbage for PvE, but based on how major the last 2 reveals have been, a 100% team support druid could be game changing for competitive.

Fluffball.8307:

100% team support would be garbage for PvE, but based on how major the last 2 reveals have been, a 100% team support druid could be game changing for competitive.

POWERFUL 100% team support would be fine, but it would have to be pretty kitten good.

I’ve been maining a ranger ever since i have played gw2, which has been since they released the game on Mac(thats what i had at the time) and to be honest, I’d give up a the whole new weapon and the set of skills that goes with it for improvements/fixes on what we already have.

What could staff bring, when we think that anet would use it to fill a lack of such abilities?
Since sun spirit will not move anymore i hope for a blind.
We lack of good team support. So we could gain a small aoe heal.
Rangers are not designed to be good at aoe, maybe the druid is.
So all in all a defensive backline supporter i think