Guild Wars 2

This question probably has already been asked, but would appreciate any answer someone willing to give, but is the staff a viable dps weapon choice for the revenant?
I just can’t seem to make a decision between starting as a revenant or guardian (which I wanna take to bow wielding Dragon Hunter.) When the revenant first came out I tried the staff but quit it very quickly, and now I’m thinking maybe to quickly. Has anyone any tips or opinions about which I should try first?

Staff is a good weapon for Rev, but not for dps. It is mostly for support. In PvP it is used for the block and skill 5. In PvE it is mainly used to break stun bars. You can use staff as a dps weapon in PvE, but it pales in comparison to sword, and it is a significant difference.

For a quick comparison between Rev and Guard, Rev is mobile, with great power based damage, mediocre conditional damage, weak ranged options and limited build diversity. Guard is slow, strong power damage, okay condition damage, strong ranged options and great build diversity. Both are fully viable in every game mode. If you are hoping for purely staff Rev, you will be disappointed.

If you want a good staff user, try thief/

Actually, Staff is a viable DPS weapon for the Rev. Yes it is more of a support weapon than straight DPS like the Sword is, but the damage definitely does not “pale in comparison” at all, nor is it significant.

Rev certainly does not also have mediocre conditional damage, as they can stack Burning very, very quickly and as long as a mob is moving in PVE then Torment damage is doubled. Their only ranged weapon is Hammer, but it hits pretty hard so it’s hardly a “weak” ranged option.
I mained Guardian exclusively pre-HoT and have moved onto Rev since and find it a rather large upgrade in my own opinion.
Rev has the advantage over Daredevil for Staff because it isn’t made of paper, one hit will not down a Rev.

I use the below build for my Rev, I pretty much main the Staff and have 0 issues in the content I do (which includes all 4 tiers of Fracs, Dungeons, DS, Personal Story etc)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vlUQJAWin3gWNSuQrJRbo/ksP0gS4I6QJ4EdrkFNFyugJshqzYHBpdABoBA-TBCBABjq+DN7P4oSQD1FklSPsUGAwTAohLBApA8amF-e

Combined with Herald and a mostly passive playstyle of boon stacking, Staff allows me to switch between defensive and offensive at the flick of a switch, breakbar easily, condi clear, tank, stun and damage. A properly played Herald is nigh unkillable. That build gives me 95% boon duration with F2, 100% crit with Fury, roughly 18k life and I always run around with Speed, Regen and F2 enabled till I get in a fight, so I pretty much have perma-regen and speed.

I also have a Vipers Condi build which I thoroughly enjoy and find the DPS is very effective, let me know if you wish to see that also.

All I can and will say is this > take what you read with a grain of salt, find what you like to play and go with it. If you enjoy Guardian, go nuts. If you enjoy Rev, go nuts.

I have tried Rev staff quite a bit in pvp / wvw (can’t say much about pve) and I will say that it is usable as a primary weapon (meaning that you can use it most of the time rather than just swapping to it for #3 or #5), with the following considerations:

-you will be kited much more easily than with sword. I recommend using it with Shiro for access to Phase Traversal. Using it with Mallyx and Unyielding Anguish for mobility works too.

-in my opinion, it seems to perform better in a tanky build than in a glassy build. Glassy direct damage builds will generally want sword. Despite the loss of the evade on sword #3, staff seems to provide better sustain due to the healing orbs on auto-attack, provided your build is tanky enough to take advantage of it.

-it seems to be better against multiple opponents (especially #2) compared to sword, but is less effective against single opponents.

What kills staff revenant for me is that I have problems actualy seeing the orbs on the ground. If they surrounded the orbs in like a purpleish shadow and make them float….that I might make my year.