Guild Wars 2

Summary

This is a video showcasing 1v1 duels against players in Obsidian Sanctum, Solo Queue tournaments and sPvP dueling rooms. The OS duels are relevant to this forum because the build actually works far better in sPvP than in WvW.

Disclaimer

Do not make the false assumption that I am beating these players with ease. Many of these players are very good. In some cases it took me multiple attempts before capturing the win. But generally, I got most of these wins on the first duel when my opponents underestimated me. Many of the Solo Queue duels are obviously ad hoc.

The Build is for sPvP (technical)

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vEAQFAWnMISJD2zAuMAdEGAIKgxEhCLco8ImZqB-TkAAyCsIqRVjrGTNyas1M+A

As I said above, there are many OS duels, but this is largely an sPvP build. The reason for that is because Cleansing Water (30 water) is a lot stronger in WvW due to hidden rules. This makes the 0/10/0/30/30 build a more desirable meta. However, I don’t run this build because it encourages cantrip usage which lacks the damage to really down your opponents with a staff spike DPS.

This build grants both sustain and spike DPS. Elemental Surge adds a few other interesting combos which will catch a lot of players off-guard. My previous videos won’t showcase this trait, but if this video interests anyone I may make another to explain them.

Leave comments!

I answer all replies (barring trolls). So don’t feel the need to scroll through every response. Just leave a comment – I’d love to hear from you

As always, thanks for watching!

The Videos

Featured Video – 1v1 Staff Elementalist Duels:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXEmfz1L36s&feature=youtu.be

Tutorial Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDX7lo1xtak

~~~*~

UPDATES MAR 3/13/14

I tracked my way onto the SoloQ leaderboard playing only this staff build. It’s probably not a monumental achievement for most… but for me, on this class/weaponset, I’m quite proud of it.

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y82/kildron/657_zpsff043ad9.jpg

Nice vid! Love seeing Ele videos, and a staff Ele at that. Was that first song from Zelda btw? Hehe

hehe love the chicken

A thief that doesn’t have shortbow, a D/D ele that does earthquake while you are 900 away. Yeah right, those guys are good players (I stopped watching there).

Besides, celestial amulet is the worth possible choice. You only have 400 more armor than a glass, and so much less power…you should go for valkyrie if you want some survivability ; with your utilities it would make sense.

I also don’t get how you can run staff without V in arcana.

You are on the Spvp forums, and only show to mediocre fights in spvp seems legit the build

I don’t like the negativity people are showing the OP. I love the effort on his part. I have to admit though, I stopped watching mid way through the first fight with the Thief. The Thief wasn’t playing very well at all.

Well, the haters are out in full force, but it seems like they’re only able to find problems with your opponents to complain about, which is a good sign, lol.

Personally, I really enjoyed the vid. PvP from a staff ele is definitely a nice change of pace. Keep up the awesome vids.

Cush.4063:

Nice vid! Love seeing Ele videos, and a staff Ele at that. Was that first song from Zelda btw? Hehe

Yes it was I’ve made it a tradition to intro all my videos with retro game music. I may have overdone chrono trigger….

Lupanic.6502:

hehe love the chicken

lol – thanks for watching all the way through

Uhtameit.2413:

A thief that doesn’t have shortbow, a D/D ele that does earthquake while you are 900 away. Yeah right, those guys are good players (I stopped watching there).

Ugruk.4069:

You are on the Spvp forums, and only show to mediocre fights in spvp seems legit the build

Jasher.6580:

I don’t like the negativity people are showing the OP. I love the effort on his part. I have to admit though, I stopped watching mid way through the first fight with the Thief. The Thief wasn’t playing very well at all.

I don’t want to make this post about negative comments on others’ play. But I feel I would not be doing them justice by ignoring it outright. They are great, top-level players. In most cases, they were caught off-guard by a few things which is hard to criticize from the sidelines:

1) Staff ele is hard CC. Executing only half of a combo will mess with the way you play. Getting CC’d mid-combo puts your cooldowns out of synch which gives me time to recover.

2) Elemental Surge chills you. I do a lot of chill. I try to confound every opponent by consistently applying chill which makes them under-rotate on their skills unless they can clear it.

3) My burst DPS also comes in the form of my heal. Often times, players will engage thinking I’m done. But geyser + arcane brilliance + arcane wave will often times swing a fight hugely in my favor. Some of my fights are won by this alone. They get arrogant (he’s a staff ele! He’s got nuttin…) and eat a huge heal + burst. Note: When they make this mistake, they also take 10s of chill for their trouble which, again, can catch players off guard as they scramble to get back into stealth.

All of these things are part of the build to help mess with the way you play. Ultimately, when it’s staff vs. thief in OS there’s a lot of luck involved. But sPvP, this build is incredibly viable when you consider the support potential it also brings.

But that’s all I’m going to say about the quality of my opponents. I welcome all positive and negative feedback about my own play only.

Uhtameit.2413:

A thief that doesn’t have shortbow, a D/D ele that does earthquake while you are 900 away. Yeah right, those guys are good players (I stopped watching there).

Besides, celestial amulet is the worth possible choice. You only have 400 more armor than a glass, and so much less power…you should go for valkyrie if you want some survivability ; with your utilities it would make sense.

I also don’t get how you can run staff without V in arcana.

Great points. Celestial gear is actually incredible for staff elementalists—moreso than you might think.

It’s true, you get less power. But you also get condition damage. It might shock some people to learn that a huge chunk of elementalist DPS comes from our conditions. Furthermore, with elemental surge—you get a butt-load of burning to help offset that power difference.

On top of that, you get:

Healing Power – (you blast a lot of water fields, and you get a lot of regen)
Toughness – (mitigation! Huzzah!)
Condition damage – (above)

All of that for the loss of a little power? Anyday.

On the note of no blasting staff. Honestly? …. It’s a crutch. It’s a relic that every ele thinks they need because they don’t think they can land their fields without those fields being enormous. The only place I actually miss it is when i’m meteor shower + Tornado since it affects the AoE of each meteor.

Once you learn to use your CC and fields correctly, you find that the extra radius…. really doesn’t do anything. They’re already standing in that lava font. Immobilized and stunned… what do you care if it’s got twice the radius?

It has other applications, but for the most part… the fields are already large enough. Have you ever had a problem blasting a healing rain? Does having your opponent walk through another 0.5s of chill really make a difference?

I’d rather have Arcane Mastery. It gives me more room to make more plays—faster. And a 20s heal never hurt.

Honestly, this video is awesome and your play is both innovative and excellent. It’s really nice to see someone experimenting and having success with a different build (by being imaginative about different combos or the strength of various traits). You also play REALLY well, to be honest, reacting to your opponent’s skills, setting up combinations of skills to force them to eat your slow dps, using your combo fields effectively, and cc’ing your opponents at the right time. I also think you are using celestial to the best of its ability on the class that has the best potential to use it! It’s a shame that there aren’t more fights like this, because these were very entertaining to watch, with give and take and the ability to really see what was going on for the most part.

Thanks for sharing this, keep it up!

Also, I agree that blasting staff isn’t really necessary (at least at small scales) if you are good at laying fields. It even makes some skills, such as static field, strictly worse.

Great video ,i enjoyed it a lot. I dont think it matters the quality of the players you faced.We all know that outside of meta builds there is very little hope when you face experienced players and its 1vs1 with staff we talking about :P.
But seriously though..i just want to play this build now.
4 kinds of fields,access to 2 strong auras,a lot of immobilizes,blinds and plenty of chill, hard ccs,mobility,cleanse and some burst through arcanes..and plenty of aoe.
The elem surge essentially makes arcanes a 4 in 1 spell with those effects and then the blasts on the field you choose add even more choice.
I just wish that sometime this becomes meta in spvp .Its not only fun how many things you got access to, but also the way you get them and how you have to chose which effect /field you need and cant spam all the effects. It would seriously bring up good players.Not to mention the skill you need to land all this delayed aoes and kiting.
I just love it when builds have many small things going on for them ! :P

BlackBeard.2873:

Honestly, this video is awesome and your play is both innovative and excellent. It’s really nice to see someone experimenting and having success with a different build (by being imaginative about different combos or the strength of various traits). You also play REALLY well, to be honest, reacting to your opponent’s skills, setting up combinations of skills to force them to eat your slow dps, using your combo fields effectively, and cc’ing your opponents at the right time. I also think you are using celestial to the best of its ability on the class that has the best potential to use it! It’s a shame that there aren’t more fights like this, because these were very entertaining to watch, with give and take and the ability to really see what was going on for the most part.

Thanks for sharing this, keep it up!

Also, I agree that blasting staff isn’t really necessary (at least at small scales) if you are good at laying fields. It even makes some skills, such as static field, strictly worse.

Thank you for the high praise! You’re absolutely correct about that static field actually being better without blasting staff. It’s really hard for people to avoid walking in to that field if they get caught inside.

And i’m glad you could catch it all. I wasn’t sure if I should speed up the footage or not in case some people may miss stuff. But I decided that if I wanted to include that 5-minute video with the killshot warrior, I knew there had to be at least something expedited

Thanks for watching!

Avead.5760:

Great video ,i enjoyed it a lot. I dont think it matters the quality of the players you faced.We all know that outside of meta builds there is very little hope when you face experienced players and its 1vs1 with staff we talking about :P.
But seriously though..i just want to play this build now.
4 kinds of fields,access to 2 strong auras,a lot of immobilizes,blinds and plenty of chill, hard ccs,mobility,cleanse and some burst through arcanes..and plenty of aoe.
The elem surge essentially makes arcanes a 4 in 1 spell with those effects and then the blasts on the field you choose add even more choice.
I just wish that sometime this becomes meta in spvp .Its not only fun how many things you got access to, but also the way you get them and how you have to chose which effect /field you need and cant spam all the effects. It would seriously bring up good players.Not to mention the skill you need to land all this delayed aoes and kiting.
I just love it when builds have many small things going on for them ! :P

Thank you for the high praise! You and I are very clearly on the same page about this. I absolutely love how much synergy is involved with staff. There are so many subtle nuances to playing staff ele that really make it a very interesting class to play.

There is no rotation. You have to adjust—sometimes on the fly. Blast different fields depending on your opponent. Use different conditions (with Surge) depending on what you need. The options are almost endless—and it definitely helps that no one knows how to properly combat a good staff ele.

There are so many different ways to play staff that it’s a shame that the class is so under-powered.

When the devs buff us… There’s going to be vengeance

KrazyFlyinChicken.5936:

But that’s all I’m going to say about the quality of my opponents. I welcome all positive and negative feedback about my own play only.

Your play is only to be as good as the opponents you face. If people are questioning your opposition, then perhaps you need to make a video facing off against some well respected names

Countless

Trigr.6481:

…

Thanks for your comments

KrazyFlyinChicken.5936:

Uhtameit.2413:

A thief that doesn’t have shortbow, a D/D ele that does earthquake while you are 900 away. Yeah right, those guys are good players (I stopped watching there).

Besides, celestial amulet is the worth possible choice. You only have 400 more armor than a glass, and so much less power…you should go for valkyrie if you want some survivability ; with your utilities it would make sense.

I also don’t get how you can run staff without V in arcana.

Great points. Celestial gear is actually incredible for staff elementalists—moreso than you might think.

It’s true, you get less power. But you also get condition damage. It might shock some people to learn that a huge chunk of elementalist DPS comes from our conditions. Furthermore, with elemental surge—you get a butt-load of burning to help offset that power difference.

Depending on the weapon, not really. That is true for staff though, given Flame Burst and Eruption, some of your damage come from conditions, but not the majority of it. You don’t even have an auto-attack that applies conditions.

KrazyFlyinChicken.5936:

On top of that, you get:

Healing Power – (you blast a lot of water fields, and you get a lot of regen)
Toughness – (mitigation! Huzzah!)
Condition damage – (above)

You can’t always blast in the fields, simply because you can’t always be close. As I said, you’re barely even different from a glass ele so if you can come close in 1v1 it’s “good” against a bad player but this build is mostly good at XvX with X>1. Then, you blast in the fields but you lose damage (if you use arcana wave on your spring without hitting the ennemies). Do I need to mention that given the scaling, so little healing power probably won’t change much your ability to regenerate?

I just tried it out for you : celestial vs berserker means Geyser heals 250hp more. It’s only good for Healing Rain, the regen goes from 1k7 to 2k2.

As for toughness, as I said, it’s a weak point, you’re no different from a glass, really.

Btw, you would get just as much healing power from valkyrie and gain 200 toughness + 500 power, you’d just lose the condition damage and the vitality.

KrazyFlyinChicken.5936:

All of that for the loss of a little power? Anyday.

On the note of no blasting staff. Honestly? …. It’s a crutch. It’s a relic that every ele thinks they need because they don’t think they can land their fields without those fields being enormous. The only place I actually miss it is when i’m meteor shower + Tornado since it affects the AoE of each meteor.

Once you learn to use your CC and fields correctly, you find that the extra radius…. really doesn’t do anything. They’re already standing in that lava font. Immobilized and stunned… what do you care if it’s got twice the radius?

It has other applications, but for the most part… the fields are already large enough. Have you ever had a problem blasting a healing rain? Does having your opponent walk through another 0.5s of chill really make a difference?

I’d rather have Arcane Mastery. It gives me more room to make more plays—faster. And a 20s heal never hurt.

Thing is, most of your damage is power, your arcana utilities relies on it as well, and relies even more so on critical damage. Giving up 500 power, 200 toughness for condi damage and vitality is a waste. Especially if you take into consideration the fact that your conditions will be easily cleansed, given the condition meta and the fact that you can’t apply many conditions quickly. That just leaves vitality, which you could get from the water traitline.

As for the V arcana, I said earlier that this build is better at team fights then anything else, it won’t be viable in 1v1 for some time : +60 radius means +120 in diameter, which is something not to be neglected, especially in a team fight. Then you care when your AoEs have a bigger radius. Even for static field, if you use it right the ennemies will get stunned regardless of the size. Why create a staff build if you’re not going to use for what it’s best at?

Finally, tornado might be sweet for a one trick poney but I suggest you try the Fiery Great Sword, it might help increase your damage a bit.

Uhtameit.2413:

…

These are all great points. I’m really glad you took the time to type this all up.

I think the big difference between this build and the glass-staff you’re describing is fundamentally opposite. The staff build featured here is built around sustain, not necessarily DPS (although the arcane utilities really help with this).

Healing and damage mitigation are the main points—but with enough DPS to break through conventional tanks (barring most warriors… sigh)

If my team required a more DPS-intensive staff build, then I don’t think I would use this build at all. I would likely use Cantrips + Zerker.

So why take this build over a D/D?

I think that’s obvious… Given the current ICD of cleansing water—and the nerf on sigil of restoration [in sPvP only]… the meta D/D build has very lousy sustain. We can’t compete with S/D burst, but their sustain is lousy too.

I would argue you get more sustain and versatility out of this staff build—with just enough capacity to solo that you won’t be instantly shut down by a thief seeking you out.

Remember also, that every time you see me blast those water fields for full health—it could be applied to allies as well. And that’s not something to scoff at.

As for fiery greatsword – I’ll run it while roaming as a means to get out. I think the scope of its usefulness in an actual fight is quite limited (similar to tornado)

I also suggested valkyrie several times. You would get just as much “sustain” and even more toughness with more reliable damage than from celestial which is the worst amulet of the game.

Also, no, 400 toughness isn’t going to cut it. Even valkyrie isn’t going to cut it. If a thief wants to eat you, he will, and very quickly.

Fiery greatsword is amazing in an actual fight : the 2 and 5 skill on a point are very annoying for whoever is on it, the auto attack and 3 skill are very damaging.

WoW. About a dozens of post, and none of you mention that this build is weak to condition damage?

That was my first post about it in the ele forums. Instead, you all focus on how bad the opponent is. This build will have tons of trouble within the current meta right now. Watch it again, and you will notice Azilyi didn’t fight any condi player at all.

Now that being said, I don’t mean to trash Azilyi’s work. I respect his effort in putting up the tutorials, and to share his knowledge. I just want to point out that you guys, instead of trying to criticize the video at its face value, just showed how arrogant you are.

It’s a shame.

/rant

Hi! I am very happy to see you trying so hard with staff elementalist! The arcane setup you have is definitely alot of fun to use (especially with the different effects from elemental surge). And I agree that celestial/divinity is appealing for staff (but it can take more effort to land kills…). But I worry that you don’t have enough condition removal for a lot of encounters (teamfights too). And the only stun break you have is on 60 sec cooldown. Regardless, keep up the good work and experimenting. I am glad you are having fun with ele!

As great as I want Glass Staff to be, it’s just not going to work in sPvP. A single zerk thief with daze on steal + boon remove will kill you. Everytime, all the time. And if you use a CD to try and live, they just reset the fight and go again.

I like the build. The arcane spells + burning from ele surge helps make up for the loss of damage you get by taking staff in the first place, and at the same time take advantage of the water fields to give you tons of healing on top of the good healing staff already has. A build like this will also take huge advantage of the sigil changes coming in the future (battle will make burning so strong with celestial!)

In WvW no doubt celestial is probably some of the go to gear for this build. However, in spvp the celestial amulet is vastly under budget compared to pve. If PvP ever gets the pve budget for celestial I would use it for this build but as others have said valkyries is probably better right now. I may even think about trying it with berserkers + valkyries jewel.

Alas it has the same weaknesses as any ele build. (thieves)

I’ll be trying this build out though, the build makes so much sense and I hope it works out well for me. Really gonna miss the bigger aoe on staff though

Nice to see duels from someone playing a hard spec/class instead of thieves/pu mesmers.

Uhtameit.2413:

I also suggested valkyrie several times. You would get just as much “sustain” and even more toughness with more reliable damage than from celestial which is the worst amulet of the game.

Also, no, 400 toughness isn’t going to cut it. Even valkyrie isn’t going to cut it. If a thief wants to eat you, he will, and very quickly.

Fiery greatsword is amazing in an actual fight : the 2 and 5 skill on a point are very annoying for whoever is on it, the auto attack and 3 skill are very damaging.

Thanks for your suggestions. Although I disagree with you on the note of the thief. It’s actually (as stated in another post) condi meta that gives this build the hardest time. Thieves are pretty one dimensional and can be beaten with this build (not always consistently, but frequently enough)

Sunshine.5014:

WoW. About a dozens of post, and none of you mention that this build is weak to condition damage?

That was my first post about it in the ele forums. Instead, you all focus on how bad the opponent is. This build will have tons of trouble within the current meta right now. Watch it again, and you will notice Azilyi didn’t fight any condi player at all.

Now that being said, I don’t mean to trash Azilyi’s work. I respect his effort in putting up the tutorials, and to share his knowledge. I just want to point out that you guys, instead of trying to criticize the video at its face value, just showed how arrogant you are.

It’s a shame.

/rant

Thanks for making another post about this because I think it’s a valid point. As I said in the other post, I didn’t include fighting condi because I honestly couldn’t find many. But that’s no excuse either.

The build is weak to condi meta. But you can fix it if the situation calls for it with little effort.

But if you’re looking for a means to make this build viable against condi:

1) Take out Arcane Blast and add in Cleansing Fire.
2) Change Elemental Surge to Evasive Arcana
3) Cycle in to water every 10 seconds.
4) [WvW] Use Lemongrass, -40% condi duration food (I run this all the time, anyways)
5) [sPvP] I switch out Divinity runes for Melandru. Less damage, but it’s useful for decap engi/warriors as well.

It won’t be an easy win (it never is), but you’ll have a fighting chance.

Celtus.8456:

Hi! I am very happy to see you trying so hard with staff elementalist! The arcane setup you have is definitely alot of fun to use (especially with the different effects from elemental surge). And I agree that celestial/divinity is appealing for staff (but it can take more effort to land kills…). But I worry that you don’t have enough condition removal for a lot of encounters (teamfights too). And the only stun break you have is on 60 sec cooldown. Regardless, keep up the good work and experimenting. I am glad you are having fun with ele!

Yes, condi can be a major problem if you weren’t prepared for it. In cases where I’m in a team fight (and condis are flying everywhere) I stand as far from the fight as I can and lay down ranged combos. I didn’t explain these combos in the tutorial video, but with elemental surge you can apply good damage from range.

If a condi player pulls from the fight to combat me, I would kite him out of the fight until (at least) I’ve removed one player from the equation by kiting to home for a 2v1.

Staff ele is amazing at kiting. Always in a worst-case scenario you can run—and have them chase you and waste their time too. Not the most elegant solution… but discretion is the better part of valour

Ryld.1340:

As great as I want Glass Staff to be, it’s just not going to work in sPvP. A single zerk thief with daze on steal + boon remove will kill you. Everytime, all the time. And if you use a CD to try and live, they just reset the fight and go again.

I try not to be defeatist when playing staff ele, but it’s often times not easy. Warriors pretty much ruin my happy place

But thieves are not impossible to beat. I put in a lot of 1v1s against thieves to try and prove that point, but I realize its far from empirical evidence. Still—thieves give me the most thrill to fight. Predicting them takes a lot of practice—but once you know what to expect, they’ll often reel from the surprise of getting CC’d and blasted into oblivion by what they thought would be an ‘easy kill’.

That’s honestly one of the best feelings you can get from playing staff

I have to admit, when I watched your duels video I also dismissed it, like many others on here. I think it’s because the x1.5 speed (why did you do that anyway?) made it hard to follow and both your moves and your opponents’ looked pretty random. Also, in part, because many of your duels were in wvw, where ascended gear and consumables make different builds viable, and a lot of us who focus on pvp and aren’t familiar with these builds assumed that these were crap players using scrub builds

However, when i watched your tutorial video and saw the amount of precision and micromanagement your play requires, it became pretty clear that you know what you’re doing. I think your build is pretty strong, though definitely not optimal in the current meta, especially with the lack of condition cleanses. I don’t think that’s an issue with your build, simply with how weak elementalists are atm – the amount of attunement dancing and the precision and speed required in laying down your aoes makes most of the currently popular builds look like easymode (including the builds I play), and it’s kitten ed unfair that this class needs so much skill to play and still performs so badly!

BTW, it wasn’t clear from your post: are you using the build you linked to in the OP, or the build you describe in your “tutorial” video?

Phantaram.1265:

…

I was heartbroken when I heard the balance changes weren’t coming in march… but to be honest, it’s probably the cause for this video’s creation. I stopped playing staff a while back because I figured they’d just change it in March anyways, so I’d have to come up with a whole new build anyways.

Now that there’s still time, I figured I’d produce this video.

On the note of thieves, I made a reply about this 10 seconds ago but I don’t expect anyone to read all these lengthy replies so I’ll quote it again here for your convenience

KrazyFlyinChicken.5936:

I put in a lot of 1v1s against thieves to try and prove that point, but I realize its far from empirical evidence. Still—thieves give me the most thrill to fight. Predicting them takes a lot of practice—but once you know what to expect, they’ll often reel from the surprise of getting CC’d and blasted into oblivion by what they thought would be an ‘easy kill’.

That’s honestly one of the best feelings you can get from playing staff

Don’t give up! Fighting thieves is thrilling.

And good luck with the build! I hope you enjoy it. Don’t despair after the first while of giving up blasting staff. It will feel like you lost a limb for a good while… but once you get used to it—it’s like getting out of a wheelchair and learning to walk again with a whole new licence on life.

(Okay, maybe not that far… but it’s still nice)

phaeris.7604:

Nice to see duels from someone playing a hard spec/class instead of thieves/pu mesmers.

Thanks for watching!

I’m glad for your optimism. My shameful admittance is that I enjoy challenging the meta. So when I set out to make this video I made it using staff because…. well… I haven’t seen it done before.

And in a game where the meta went stale months ago, I thought something new might be a welcome change for tired eyes

Or maybe i’m masochistic.

Thanks for watching!

No offense to the OP, its good he is showing combos in action…

But what I took from the vids were:-

1) Well your messing around trying to get your combos off, you opponents just cap the point, well downing/killing you. Hence they were winning all the time.

2) Staff Eles die/get downed a awful lot, to the slightest thing.

3) Even when you get the combos off, your damage is nothing special.

4) The only reason you survive at all really is down to your movement, good placement in a battle and heavy reliance on your dodge which every other class can do too.

5) Your having to work 4 times as hard as other character classes and your still fairly poor compared to them.

6) Most important, don’t play a Ele EVER.

But you know, well done for trying…

Meglobob.8620:

No offense to the OP, its good he is showing combos in action…

But what I took from the vids were:-

1) Well your messing around trying to get your combos off, you opponents just cap the point, well downing/killing you. Hence they were winning all the time.

2) Staff Eles die/get downed a awful lot, to the slightest thing.

3) Even when you get the combos off, your damage is nothing special.

4) The only reason you survive at all really is down to your movement, good placement in a battle and heavy reliance on your dodge which every other class can do too.

5) Your having to work 4 times as hard as other character classes and your still fairly poor compared to them.

6) Most important, don’t play a Ele EVER.

But you know, well done for trying…

Translation: Stop playing the class you enjoy most and are really good with. Fold over to the meta instead. That’s why you bought this game, of course.

Nah but seriously, nice work KFC. There’s a lot that could be learned from this vid, it’s good to have someone championing staff Elementalists and with the buffs coming I’m looking forward to seeing more of your stuff.

manveruppd.7601:

I have to admit, when I watched your duels video I also dismissed it, like many others on here. I think it’s because the x1.5 speed (why did you do that anyway?) made it hard to follow and both your moves and your opponents’ looked pretty random. Also, in part, because many of your duels were in wvw, where ascended gear and consumables make different builds viable, and a lot of us who focus on pvp and aren’t familiar with these builds assumed that these were crap players using scrub builds

However, when i watched your tutorial video and saw the amount of precision and micromanagement your play requires, it became pretty clear that you know what you’re doing. I think your build is pretty strong, though definitely not optimal in the current meta, especially with the lack of condition cleanses. I don’t think that’s an issue with your build, simply with how weak elementalists are atm – the amount of attunement dancing and the precision and speed required in laying down your aoes makes most of the currently popular builds look like easymode (including the builds I play), and it’s kitten ed unfair that this class needs so much skill to play and still performs so badly!

BTW, it wasn’t clear from your post: are you using the build you linked to in the OP, or the build you describe in your “tutorial” video?

These are some great questions! I might type up a tome here, so forgive me…

The note on Speed

I sped up time for one reason, and one reason only… I didn’t want people to get bored. I’ve always felt that 10-minutes is about the maximum amount of time that the average internet user is willing to spend on someone else playing, and I wanted to get as many duels into the video in that time as I could. I don’t feel so bad about the tutorial videos because it’s all explanation and can’t be avoided.

I settled on 1.15x speed because I wanted to show everything—but I wanted to save time. If I did no speedups, this video would be over 20 minutes long. I don’t know if my attention span even extends that far). The 1.4x speed duel was because… well… it was really long. I almost didn’t include it because of how long it was. So I compromised to slow it down at the moment when the plays finally worked out.

Full Ascended Gear

I actually have terrible gear. I think only 3 pieces of my armor is actually ascended. These OS duels were especially frustrating for that reason. Fighting players with a natural +5% damage, and +5% armor really made me feel like I wanted to start gearing up again.

But on the note of opponent builds—I can’t say. I did make sure (for example) that the videos were featuring builds that (at least) weren’t totally random. But I can only do so much. For example, I made sure the D/D ele was using sigil of restoration and cantrips before including it.

The thieves in the OS were pretty much there 24/7 so I can only assume they knew what they were doing. But i cannot guarantee that their builds were meta. But I tried my best to make sure they were (at least by my reckoning) viable builds. As I said before… they usually beat me immediately after their loss. I could feel their rage flowing through them—and I’m not the kind of person to beat them in a duel and then run off. I always gave em a chance to try again, and they almost always handed my butt back to me.

Terrible class

This made me laugh. This is the crying shame about elementalists. You need to be really good to have any chance at all. And this is why eles have such a terrible reputation. When you see a staff ele in spvp you think ‘Darn. Time to AFK.’

But the truth is we aren’t that bad. We just have a lot of average players playing a class which is below average.

Which is great news for when the tweaks come around. I sincerely hope they give me enough buffs that my play becomes unbeatable

The correct build

Also – the build in the 1v1 video is the one in post. The tutorial video is quite old, and that build is retired. But the combos are all still relevant.

This is my build that is used in the OS:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vEAQFAWnMISJD2zAuMAdEGAIKgxEhCLco8ImZqB-zEyAoegkfR0YraFRjVVDpXwUnJV5GYvhyKpAYSYE-w

Meglobob.8620:

No offense to the OP, its good he is showing combos in action…

But what I took from the vids were:-

1) Well your messing around trying to get your combos off, you opponents just cap the point, well downing/killing you. Hence they were winning all the time.

2) Staff Eles die/get downed a awful lot, to the slightest thing.

3) Even when you get the combos off, your damage is nothing special.

4) The only reason you survive at all really is down to your movement, good placement in a battle and heavy reliance on your dodge which every other class can do too.

5) Your having to work 4 times as hard as other character classes and your still fairly poor compared to them.

6) Most important, don’t play a Ele EVER.

But you know, well done for trying…

Thanks for watching! I appreciate all feedback

I dont agree with point 1. In fact, every 1v1 fight in tournaments featured here I show myself either holding the point or taking it. In fact, staff ele is better for fighting on points because my abilities are more reliant on movement restriction than theirs. (I love putting chill fields down across the whole circle)

Point 3 is valid. But the added advantage to staff eles is a wide array of support skills and water fields. You are a true asset to a team fight. Some other classes don’t do well in big brawls. Elementalist surely does. (Minion master necros die immediately to ele meteor shower)

Point 5 is very valid. No arguments here, lol

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Nah but seriously, nice work KFC. There’s a lot that could be learned from this vid, it’s good to have someone championing staff Elementalists and with the buffs coming I’m looking forward to seeing more of your stuff.

Thanks for the high praise Chaos

Just don’t show the devs this… they might just decide to nerf us again

KrazyFlyinChicken.5936:

Uhtameit.2413:

I also suggested valkyrie several times. You would get just as much “sustain” and even more toughness with more reliable damage than from celestial which is the worst amulet of the game.

Also, no, 400 toughness isn’t going to cut it. Even valkyrie isn’t going to cut it. If a thief wants to eat you, he will, and very quickly.

Fiery greatsword is amazing in an actual fight : the 2 and 5 skill on a point are very annoying for whoever is on it, the auto attack and 3 skill are very damaging.

Thanks for your suggestions. Although I disagree with you on the note of the thief. It’s actually (as stated in another post) condi meta that gives this build the hardest time. Thieves are pretty one dimensional and can be beaten with this build (not always consistently, but frequently enough)

No doubt the condi will give a hard time but so will a decent thief. You do have some great insight as far as ele goes, but you don’t seem very good at judging your opponent’s worth : any remotely decent thief will own you, and you can’t convince me otherwise after you’ve said those guys were “very good”.

EDIT : confirmed, I met a r49 ele running that build with 4 arcana utilities and berserker amulet while playing my thief. As soon as arcana shield was on cool down, he stood no chance.

I’ve tried variations of this build a while back, but got tired of having to try so hard for little reward compared to other specs.

I do appreciate your efforts though, but in this meta they are futile :P

SlayerUK.5029:

I’ve tried variations of this build a while back, but got tired of having to try so hard for little reward compared to other specs.

I do appreciate your efforts though, but in this meta they are futile :P

I definitely hope that Arenanet throws staff ele a bone in the next patch. If im reading it correctly, all of the ‘confirmed’ changes are D/D and scepter related.

Looking forward to it. Futile though? Maybe not futile…. but the hill is pretty steep

Awesome! 151515

Alfred Nobel.2914:

Awesome! 151515

Thanks for watching!

On that note—using only this staff build in yoloQ, I’ve managed to worm my way onto the top 1K again.

So yes. There is some hope for staff in sPvP outside of bunker. Adding this to the original post

http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y82/kildron/657_zpsff043ad9.jpg

Real staff eles play 30-30-0-0-10 in this current meta! Gotta risk it to get the biscuit?
J/K sir. Its good to see more Ele’s playing in this unholy unbalanced game that is gw2. One day we will be good again. Keep it up!

Staff is actually my favorite Ele weapon after S/F right now. I feel it outclasses the daggers at everything as well, it has a better Ride the Lighting, plenty of damage at a safe distance, and can heal up your friends better too. The only thing I don’t think it can do better than daggers is auramancing. I honestly feel like daggers make you into a bad Warrior.

If Thieves didn’t exist, I’d actually say it’s pretty decent overall. Provided you run like a girl you can avoid many threats that would otherwise murder you and to kill you guys have to go way off point if you stay at a safe distance.

I personally prefer full support Staff or full glass – can’t say I find this specific iteration all that effective. Maybe if Celestial were a little better.

Morderger.6298:

Real staff eles play 30-30-0-0-10 in this current meta! Gotta risk it to get the biscuit?
J/K sir. Its good to see more Ele’s playing in this unholy unbalanced game that is gw2. One day we will be good again. Keep it up!

Hahaha.

I love running that spec for tPvP. I still do, if the enemy team neglects to bring a thief

Thanks for watching!

TainoFuerte.8136:

Staff is actually my favorite Ele weapon after S/F right now. I feel it outclasses the daggers at everything as well, it has a better Ride the Lighting, plenty of damage at a safe distance, and can heal up your friends better too. The only thing I don’t think it can do better than daggers is auramancing. I honestly feel like daggers make you into a bad Warrior.

If Thieves didn’t exist, I’d actually say it’s pretty decent overall. Provided you run like a girl you can avoid many threats that would otherwise murder you and to kill you guys have to go way off point if you stay at a safe distance.

I personally prefer full support Staff or full glass – can’t say I find this specific iteration all that effective. Maybe if Celestial were a little better.

I agree with most of this! Staff really can be better than d/d in sPvP. I think there’s something to be said about S/D, but there are definitely strong roles for either set.

Thieves don’t cause me too much trouble. For the most part, if one jumps on me I can keep him back or kill him because I can burst him just the same as he can burst me. As has been mentioned, the hard counter to this build is most definitely condi. If you don’t adequately prepare for a condi necro (switch some skills around), you’re in trouble. Condi engi is manageable with range/dodges, but some condi builds will just mess you up.

Thanks for watching!

I liked the video, and truly appreciate your guts to pick Elemental Surge AND something else than Increased AoE on Staff. Seeing people confident to stop using it just invites me to do so too. I will consider swapping to arcane skill cooldown, most likely.

I also run a combat/dueling Staff Elementalist a little bit like you. But, I do it differently. In short, it’s a One With Air + Fresh Air Celestial/Zealot/Cavalier Staff. It’s based on extreme mobility and attunement-swap-during-casting mechanics, and fast casting. 0/30/0/20/20. I got to hit rank 46 in the Leaderboard, and currently sit in the 100ish.
I can’t exactly reproduce it the way I want in SPvP due to the thrinkets though. But when I roam and duel in WvW with the stats I want, I run with Signet of Restoration arcane blase + arcane wave + Signet of Air + Glyph of Elemental (Elite). But, anyway, I’d rather explain the reasoning behind One With Air (100% increased movement speed for 1.5 seconds after swapping to Air).

Why would you get One With Air on staff?
-Which first major trait is good on Air Magic? I tried the endurance regen on channel, which was not bad at all; boons on aura doesn’t really makes any sense on staff; 7% precision on healing bonus will only give 100-140 healing bonus; 20% damage bonus when target is at 33% hp is not bad too, but hey, if you bring the target that low, it also means that you’ll probably win the duel anyway. So, What about One with Air?
-The synergy with Fresh Air is remarkable. You will get free atunement swap to Air, and it procs the buff everytime. That means the equivalent of swiftness speed out-of-combat most of the time. I have chased GS warriors with that.
-It allows you to move around the battle more easily, replaces Lightning Flash in some ways.
-You can cure all movement conditions with lightning 4, which can’t be done with scepter or dagger.
- It can be used either as an escape tool, as a juke potential tool, as a chase ability, or as an offensive tool. With that, you can charge into melee range (transition from mid range between 600 and 900 of your target) and hit with Gust. Yep. Gust. Gust and Shockwave, which will both fail or get dodged when cast from afar. You will hit Gust and Shockwave (that’s something!).

I don’t know if you tried a build of that style, but I assure you, the DPS is off-the-chart With 20% damage when above 90% health threshold you, Sigil of lighning (because crits). You will be able to keep yourself above the threshold with the fast casting of fresh-air.

“Fresh Air for staff?! You must be kidding me. Why would you want to swap on air as staff?”
That point is valid. Somewhat. Yes, scepter seems to have a relative advantage to swap to lightning compared to the Staff. But, have you seen the Earth Attunement or the Water Attunement DPS on the Staff? Wouldn’t you only want to stay in earth just long enought to cast the essential? What about water too? cast the Ice Spike (highest damage spell of the rotation + vulnerability stacks) and the ice field and get over to another attunement? With Fresh Air, and the proper attunement-swapping-while-casting, you will even be able to start casting lightning 2, swap to fire before lightning 2 resolve to do #2 + #3 (it can crit; dont forget), then swap immediately back to air for static field, then Earth #2,#3,#4; then water #2; then arcane spell (Crits!); then back to air.
The potential. I’ve not filtered the full juice yet. Who told you that you couldn’t move while doing so? And guess what, you will move swiftness-out-of-combat speed most of the time. Perso, I didn’t reach it’s full potential yet, and I’ve won a 1v3 in WvW (no up-levels) with spiking and kitten. Warrior+Engi+ mesmer.
I’m even having a blast against thieves (from horribad to quite decent/ good thieves. I’ll have my share of sweat against talented ones, of course)

Nota Bene, I will test without Larger Staff Field (arcana V) and see how it goes. Thanks for the post, its good to compare notes sometimes.
Also, if you want more info on that build, just ask. Note also that it’s not a magic potion: it takes a lot of dedication.

There are some great ideas here, I like it

Alekt.5803:

I can’t exactly reproduce it the way I want in SPvP due to the thrinkets though. But when I roam and duel in WvW with the stats I want, I run with Signet of Restoration arcane blase + arcane wave + Signet of Air + Glyph of Elemental (Elite).

Yeah well, in PvP you may want to use the glyph. Given that you don’t cast too many spells with staff, I wonder why you chose that and how it’s working.

Alekt.5803:

But, anyway, I’d rather explain the reasoning behind One With Air (100% increased movement speed for 1.5 seconds after swapping to Air).

Why would you get One With Air on staff?
-Which first major trait is good on Air Magic? I tried the endurance regen on channel, which was not bad at all; boons on aura doesn’t really makes any sense on staff; 7% precision on healing bonus will only give 100-140 healing bonus; 20% damage bonus when target is at 33% hp is not bad too, but hey, if you bring the target that low, it also means that you’ll probably win the duel anyway. So, What about One with Air?

There is the glyph CD reduction trait that is good. Otherwise, if the target you may be low as well so the reasoning is flawed :p

Alekt.5803:

I don’t know if you tried a build of that style, but I assure you, the DPS is off-the-chart With 20% damage when above 90% health threshold you, Sigil of lighning (because crits). You will be able to keep yourself above the threshold with the fast casting of fresh-air.

I’ve no idea who you’ve been fighting, but anyone remotely decent will use a range weapon and get you under 90% very easily, unless you’re running soldier’s amulet.
Usually, stacking might is much more reliable (rune of strength and sigil of battle).

Alekt.5803:

“Fresh Air for staff?! You must be kidding me. Why would you want to swap on air as staff?”
That point is valid. Somewhat. Yes, scepter seems to have a relative advantage to swap to lightning compared to the Staff. But, have you seen the Earth Attunement or the Water Attunement DPS on the Staff? Wouldn’t you only want to stay in earth just long enought to cast the essential? What about water too? cast the Ice Spike (highest damage spell of the rotation + vulnerability stacks) and the ice field and get over to another attunement? With Fresh Air, and the proper attunement-swapping-while-casting, you will even be able to start casting lightning 2, swap to fire before lightning 2 resolve to do #2 + #3 (it can crit; dont forget), then swap immediately back to air for static field, then Earth #2,#3,#4; then water #2; then arcane spell (Crits!); then back to air.

Stay in earth or water just to cast the essential? the essential truly depends on the situation and may very well prove to be all 4 casts, as you know quite well. Btw, with this move, they would have enough time to step out of the lava font, I’d rather do the static field first and ensure that they stay 2s in it.

Alekt.5803:

The potential. I’ve not filtered the full juice yet. Who told you that you couldn’t move while doing so? And guess what, you will move swiftness-out-of-combat speed most of the time. Perso, I didn’t reach it’s full potential yet, and I’ve won a 1v3 in WvW (no up-levels) with spiking and kitten. Warrior+Engi+ mesmer.
I’m even having a blast against thieves (from horribad to quite decent/ good thieves. I’ll have my share of sweat against talented ones, of course)

Given your utilities, I don’t know how you could be anything but a free kill to thieves. Are you talking about WvW thieves?

Alekt.5803:

…

A lot of interesting ideas here. This is actually pretty close to my build for Scepter/Dagger.

I’m not sure that Fresh Air is worth giving up ES or EA though for me though given how slowly your channels go off—I don’t see crits happening all that often in order to make good use of it.

But thanks for the suggestion!

Gj with Vods , i always wanted to try staff ele and i made one yeastarday with your build and i am having so much fun in soloq , i realy enjoy playing it even i am getteing kitten by thiefs or condi necros.

I notice that a few people mention auramancy being terrible on Staff - this isn’t true, and we actually have two auras available (and can trigger one multiple times):

- Magnetic Aura, skill 3 in Earth Attunement. Of course.
- Frost Aura, by blasting in or leaping through that lovely ice field.

If you blast a few times in the ice field, you’ll get several applications of the auramancy boons, and (possibly more importantly) you’ll give them to allies nearby. If you build for combo finishers (bring Brilliance, Wave, Evasive Arcana, Conjured Flame Axe for reliable ones, or the Lightning Hammer for a "do I feel lucky" blast in the AA chain) you can get pretty high protection uptime and maintain swiftness and fury just from doing this.

I’m considering going 20 water again (not done it for a while) and traiting the cooldown of those fields to see how it works - but that can come when I’m done messing about as a full zerk (and surviving without any cantrips, by the way).