Guild Wars 2

So I love the staff. I think it is an awesome idea, the animations are fantastic, and the feel of hitting things in melee with a staff is great.

What I am truly curious about is what makes the staff great when you separate it from Ventari. Is there even a reason to use the staff if you aren’t running the Ventari legend? I know that, personally, I’m not a big healer – I like to support the group, but not directly through heals. I really, really want to run a melee staff, though – is this feasible in the current set up?

A disclaimer: I’m not saying I dislike Ventari. On the contrary, I think it is a great legend, and a really fresh take on group healing with a unique mechanic.

Staff is probably the best melee weapon for a tank Dwarf build, as I said in multiple threads.

It comes with healing auto attack, weakness, projectile block, aoe heal and condi cleanse, aoe knockback.

I actually find staff awful with Ventari skills, because managing the tablet prevents you from using weaponskills to the fullest. They just happen to be both a good choice for a healer build. Weaponswap is good here, because you can be a dedicated healer and swap between Hammer+Ventari and Staff+Jalis/Ventari to get the best healing output while being able to land some ranged attacks while using the tablet and some melee attacks while not using it.

So yeah, go with staff if you want to be healer, but also if you want to tank.

However tank Revenant is just a theoretical build. It didn’t seem so tanky in my practical test in the last beta, and not much has changed in that regard.

I believe Glint’s offhand shield with quite a heals will be a good option.

Paired with either Mace or Sword MH.

i plan on going staff without ventari

most likely shiro/jalis(maybe glint)

with sword/sword as my other weapon set

staff is super fun

Rym.1469:

I believe Glint’s offhand shield with quite a heals will be a good option.

Paired with either Mace or Sword MH.

yeah, data mined skills are confirmed. May be changed since they also changed staff to be the healing one.
However staff will still have an extra condi cleanse and projectile block.

Hmm I see a staff with Jalis working well, now that you say that. And with weapon swapping now a thing, potentially a Jalis/Glint with Staff/ ? & shield?

Aegrahm.4952:

Hmm I see a staff with Jalis working well, now that you say that. And with weapon swapping now a thing, potentially a Jalis/Glint with Staff/ ? & shield?

We still don’t know anything about Glint skills. I can’t answer that.
Staff and Jalis also work well because of the hammers upkeep, that imo is better with a melee weapon in pve (rotating hammers can get scary only in pvp, normal mosters are not scared at all, so Hammer + Jalis is not amazing in pve, and justified only by a Jalis/Shiro build with Hammer+S/S)

@ Kidel That makes sense. Do you think Glint might have a general trait for two-handed weapons? I wish there were more traits that directly effect the staff

I don’t know :|

In case any of you didn’t try this yet, staff is very strong. I had some duels with the staff on zerker amulet, it turned out pretty well. I obviously lost since revs weren’t really great then, but staff deals lots of damage, autoattack is strong, skill 5 is super strong but tricky to use.

I have a feeling the staff will be the second highest DPS parsing weapon for the Revenant, depending on how sword turns out, it’s obvious that mainhand sword is meant to be the go-to DPS weapon, mace is clearly tailored to Conditions, so that leaves us with staff & hammer, ranged weapons will rarely if ever outparse melee weapons for DPS, which is how it should be, which means logically, staff ‘should’ be the second highest parsing weapon for revenant.

I imagine it’ll be much something like the staff being comparable to the Greatsword on Ranger, not the highest DPS’ing weapon available to the class, but you’re just glad they aren’t using a longbow (hammer)

I wonder if Roy will see this but about staff, would it be possible to make Renewing Wave (Staff 4) an evasive attack? the animation does sort of look like an evade, also since the attack is a heal, it would be nice for the heal to be guaranteed since it also has a CD

I played with staff quite a bit without Ventari. It’s quite a useful utility weapon. Plus, the damage bonuses it will receive by the next beta test will make it even better.

With the recent changes staff should have some insane sustain when paired with shiro life steal traits, Jalix tank traits and a sigil of blood + sigil of frailty.

The damage should also be going up according to what the said so it will be even better.

The damage buff they posted comes out to about 17% more AA damage.

Staff 2 will probably still be situational, but is a small damage increase now.

Rym.1469:

I believe Glint’s offhand shield with quite a heals will be a good option.

Paired with either Mace or Sword MH.

Who said shield will be offhand ? :→
ATM rev is good at using weapons… differently. Melee staff, range hammer, condi mace/axe.
Think about elementalist conjure earth shield. Wanna smite some1 old Diablo2 style ?

Personally I wouldn’t ever use the staff as a Ventari-focused revenant, at least not as one that has a high % outgoing healing stat, because I wouldn’t want to be in close-range with no stability, stunbreak, mobility, or powerful self-healing. As others have stated, the staff seems much more suited to Jallis.
Personally, I’ll be using a hammer with a Ventari revenant. Primarily for the spammable light projectile combo between Hammer Bolt and Protective Solace, but I would imagine that the barrier and the CC that Hammer #5 offers would be quite useful as well. No idea what I’d use for the second weapon, maybe Glint’s shield.

Staff, if they get the numbers right, will be fantastic for every legend except for Mallyx.

Hell, now that weapon swap is in the game, I’m imagining a seriously cheesy Phase Traversal → Surge of the Mists → Unrelenting Assault combo. It brings you to your opponent, isolates them by pushing them away (also shredding them with potentially high damage), and then goes ham on the isolated target with Unrelenting Assault.

I wanna try Sword/Mace and Shield. Using mace in combination with sword to chill and stick on enemies and shield to heal (possibly)

idk it really depends on what the skills for shield are going to be…

For large, long, cluster fest fights where going melee is suicidal, I could just set back and range support with Ventari.

Greek.4396:

I wanna try Sword/Mace and Shield. Using mace in combination with sword to chill and stick on enemies and shield to heal (possibly)

idk it really depends on what the skills for shield are going to be…

For large, long, cluster fest fights where going melee is suicidal, I could just set back and range support with Ventari.

You’ll have a hard time with that, the Revenant doesn’t have an offhand mace.
Unless you mean Mace/sword, but then you won’t have chill.

Staff has most of it’s use on WvW as frontline/backline healer and Fractals because it applies at least some weakness (pales in comparison to other classes sources of weakness, for example if you compare it to Call to Arms which grants vigor 10s and applies 6 seconds of weakness) and has blinds and an extra heal, also some of the procs on Salvation traits can be useful asides healing because, excepting you’ll trade of some damage for rather mediocre utility, you can have 1 blind each 20-30 seconds with procs, plus the blinds from warding rift, Tranquil Benediction seems as a reliable source of regen if you’re not using Ventari but IMO the trait would be way much more useful if it granted vigor, resistance or protection instead of swiftness and Momentary Pacification can be used as an emergency daze each 10 seconds since the only elite that has a CD is rite of the great dwarf, a build focused on control could use Jalis & any other legend and picking Either Devastation, Salvation & Invocation, with Staff and Mace/Sword, you have a knockback, 2 immobilizes, taunt, 2 sources of weakness, blind on procs and daze on elite.

I plan on going Sword/Sword or Sword/Axe with the staff on my weapon swap (so freaking cool we can weapon swap now) and I probably won’t be using ventari’s legend I’m looking at the staff from a different angle well the angle it was kind of announced as with Ventari but I’m going to use it mainly to tank and support a little with (: when I need shiir DPS I will use Shiro (hah see what I did that Shiro Shiir I is pronounce ee in Japanese haha No)
But that feeling of whacking someone in heavy amazing looking armour with a stick is just so appealing I might actually make a second Revenant and try make him look like an old man and keep shouting GET OFF MA LAWN every time I hit someone in pvp

Use Staff where the combo fields as the whirl autoattack is very nice.

Paired with Jalis and the Lightning Field you can use it for Brutal Bolts and apply Vulnerability. Now with Targeted Destruction (a minor trait in Assassin/Devastation line), you also will be doing increased damage without the 25% trigger on hit chance from Mutilate Defenses plus, you know, even more Vulnerability.