Guild Wars 2

EnderzShadow.2506:

What a bore.

You necroed a 10 month old thread you started and you alone were bumping.

And you did it to say what? If anyone played your build would know how to play the new spec? Get out of here with that self promoting nonsense.

Where do you see self promotion? And why would i want to promote myself?
In no way do I say that staff eles should play how i did talkless of playing “my builds”, i just referenced that so people know what i’m talking about.

And about the bumping, I’ve considered it and know it may not have been a good idea! But it was either opening a new thread just to say what I said, or continuing this thread. Since i was planning to give my thoughts about the changes, since said thoughts were in light of the guide, since i hadn’t replied to some comments AND since it isn’t that big a deal to pump up a thread, I chose to put it on this thread.

Honestly, I really don’t care about builds, i’d rather leave it to my target group to individually come up with their own builds, that has been my whole philosophy and I think I’ve made that clear enough in multiple ways. I never talked about builds in that way and only put those up because they were requested. Where on earth do you see me promoting builds? Completing the purpose of this guide by giving every information I have (or found) about everything around the staff, is the only goal i was trying to achieve here. But I also want it all in one thread rather than having to open a new one.

I don’t mind for this thread being out of sight in the forum because of its age. I wasn’t even expecting any additional comments (except of this kind). Although I tried making the guide timeless but its expiration was inevitable.

I didn’t bump up this thread for selfish reasons like you’re claiming, I did it to complete the thread in the hopes of resolving unanswered questions and giving additional advice on how (and in what way) the new changes affect the guide! if I ever feel like this thread needs a bump for any other reason than this one, i’d probably have played more than a day (like i did for this bump) before bumping it. And, in fact, would care enough to just make a new, updated guide all the same.

..see the last 4 comments..

Sontaran.5904:

I’ve had some success with staff in pvp, but are the builds in the guide up to date? What are you using that works right now? I might do some tests and then post a build here after I find something that works.

They aren’t up to date anymore :S, at least not as much as i would want them to be.

vesica tempestas.1563:

Well ive spent about 3k hours with staff so i’m reasonably familiar with it and it has it has place in wvw siege, mid zerg and raid aoe spam but thats it, your playing with a massive disadvantage in any other scenario. As with every other mmo that has pvp, single attack > aoe otherwise aoe would be op. play against an equal skilled player and you will melt – theres a reason why its not meta just now.

The main reason I run staff ele (or anyone who runs staff ele for that matter) in pvp is not for the 1v1 encounters, depending on the build, it’s very effective in quickly clearing cap points or bringing BIG, unrivaled support to your teammates. The problem is that it’s its weakest when you’re in a 1v1 or when, depending on your build, you get focused. The guide is a result of me trying to find ways to solve this weakness, so i can still play my favorite weapon set

Mosen.1426:

Hi all.
Possible build for PVP:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFAWn0XCdOg9XCOYCcYilNAzdv+XPsF9gdwNY4BEAKgA-TJRWABm+AAAY/BHLDs3FAAA
Opinions are welcome….

hi, i know this is quite late, but for what it’s worth: I see that this build is all about support and sustain, in that case i’d suggest going for water specialization instead of arcane, you have soo much healing with the magi amulet that (imo) it would be a waste without the water line… especially when going with diamond skin..
in both the adept and master tiers, go for upper or lower according to your preference (but seeing you only have one cantrip, aquamancer’s training is highly recommended), but in the grandmaster tier, cleansing water is most effective for this build since you don’t have sufficient condi cleanse. “But i have diamond skin” you could say, and yes all good, but it’s not really essential when you’re running tempest, you’ll be kittenting out condicleanses without notice, when you take water line, then it’s best to also take stone heart instead of diamond skin. But yet again, when you’re going up against high condi, then i’d take diamond skin in addition to everything i just said. then you’ll have anough condicleanses to fight two condi build at once.

If you don’t want water, and would like to keep the utility that arcane provides, you would do better by going air and taking tempest defence and lightning rod. those have way better synergy with your build and it’s playstyle.

I haven’t played the game for a while now, and probably won’t be able to for another while. But having read the update of some old skills, on staff (3 skills in water att. have been changed/modified, and also earth), the elites (water elemental and FGS) and conjures (with LH getting the most important changes) with, in addition, the new specialisation (weaver) in prospect, I can’t help but admit that the devs are starting to take steps in the right direction in terms of balancing out the staff ele and making it a bit easier to learn and play.. (i.e. ammunition mechanic for arcane skills, ice spike becoming a blast finisher, LH granting quickness and superspeed, etc..)

With weaver in foresight, all elementalist in all weapon combinations will be forced to think way more strategically than ever before if they want to be as good and as effective as they are right now. What I mean by this is that the weaver requires extreme knowledge of the weapon skills good timing AND how to access them. but if you’ve been playing the staff as I showed in the guide, it should be less of a difficulty gap for you to learn the weaver, than for any other weapon set. This is another way the staff becomes a bit more balanced

My only remark: In changing the mechanics of the conjures to cooldown instead of usage count, they should’ve made it easier to pickup the second summoned weapon instead of it still being so clunky to pick up and is mostly disadvantageous to pick one up during a fight.

vesica tempestas.1563:

Its because its not really area of denial, too easily mitigated, too low dmg. You cant survive 1v1 and you cant dmg 1v1. Too easy to pressure you/burst you down, no invuln, no burst. Finally your range 1200 is wasted – you need to be standing in the point to capture it.

Its only good against beginner players that dont realise they can burst you down + allow you to freely aoe.

dagger gives great mobility and burst, and Sceptre plays nicely with sage.

i should add, above only applies to spvp and roaming, fine elsewhere.

You make it sound like once you equip staff, these are the only skills you have access to..
“too easily mitigated, too low dmg. You cant survive 1v1 and you cant dmg 1v1. Too easy to pressure you/burst you down, no invuln, no burst”
With all due respect, i’m getting quite fed up and annoyed with these kind of comments. It proves you haven’t read nor understood the guide. If theres any weapon set in gw2 that requires extremely high synergy not only between its skills but even more with the mutual profession skills (read: utility and traits) and also requires the maximum skill-on-skill interaction needed to pull things off, it’s the staff. I think i’ve made that clear anough in the guide. I’ve also stressed anough why this is among the main reasons it’s so hard to play.

So, for example, you DO have access to invulnerabilty, provided by the fact that you’re still an ELEMENTALIST. If the staff on its own had any kind of additional invuln skill it would become op. Instantly, despite anything else.
You may be as good as you want, if i know what i’m doing you won’t be bursting me down as quickly as you think. And about getting out of pressure, the staff is far from inferior. If you’ve read the guide toroughly, you’d also notice you DO have access to burst.
Finally, as i’ve said many times before, you don’t rely on range as the ranger does, especially when you’re bunker you NEED to be in your fields and in the point to get the most out of your abilities, but I also showed anough examples where i needed to keep my opponent at a distance and succeeded.

I don’t blame you tough, i also tought the same way when i hadn’t play the staff anough to see this.

And it definitely IS area of denial! You won’t always be having stability up for my cc and if i accumulate some AoE’s (which i could do all day) on a point, even if i’m bunker, it’s till going to hurt. Talkless of the hybrid or damage builds!

vesica tempestas.1563:

ProDecius.2609:

If only staff had an invul CD like Obsidian Flesh, staff ele is viable in pretty much no section of the game and honestly while playing my S/F ele I’ve never seen a staff ele that wasn’t a free kill. Sorry but it’s true.

With that said I still play staff ele all the time myself mostly in wvw and therefore appreciate the time and effort put in to this guide anyway despite how much anet hates our class. GL HF ele players who attempt this.

agree, i also play staff in wvw , in my case when defending against large groups. Agree In Spvp a staff players is a free kill, you apply a bit of pressure on them and they have to run. Player with strong 1 single attacks V a player with aoe, equally skilled that’s a bloodbath for obvious reasons.

The real issue with staff is the opportunity cost when considering the other ele weapons.

@ ProDecius:
Like i said many times before, staff is hard to play, And Anet isn’t exactly helping that either. But if they should add something, it shouldn’t be invuln. Or the staff would instantly become OP. They should instead correct the risk:reward ratio of some of our skills OR reduce some CD’s like healing rain (only in pvp) and ONE OF our defensive ground target skills.

The staff IS hard and that’s the main reason you haven’t seen any decent staff that isn’t “a free kill”, there are just not much out there, they’re quiet rare! When I played gw2 for 2 years on a normal, weekly basis, i only met ONE other staff player who loved the wep set who loved the mechanics of the staff as mutch as i did.

@ vesica tempestas:

Single attacks vs aoe doesn’t necessarily need to be “a bloodbath”

Zintrothen.1056:

Hey, I think some info on dos and don’ts would be good. So, what should I never do as Staff, and what are times when exceptions can be made?

Also, I know you mentioned that you want players to figure out for themselves for rotations, but suggestions would be nice. This could give us an idea what a good rotation looks like. And if not rotations, then combos. You mentioned the combo of CES 4 with Air 5. More things like that would be great to see.

Another thing, a little info on counters against professions, especially Thieves, Warriors and Necros. You talked a bit about how powerful Thief is against Staff Eles, but I always have trouble against Warriors and they’re ability to stick to me, and Necros with their constant corruptions and condi bombs. What to avoid and what skills can help nullify the effects of their skills.

One more thing, a guide on good positioning would be fantastic. Staff is a range weapon and, like many squishy, hard hitting range specs, positioning is important. So info on good spots on maps to sniper players and kiting paths, etc. Just info about where to move, how to move around in fights and things like that.

I look forward to any updates!

1) Hi, there aren’t really any do’s nor don’t’s, if there are don’t’s, they’re quiet obvious really. And when you ever do them, you’d know and learn right away

2)i’ve given plenty of examples of rotations and combo’s in my original guide, you should check them out

3) If you didn’t find any discussion about countering thieves in my original guide, you’d find it in its extension about builds..
Fighting necro’s shouldn’t be a problem since you, as an elementalist, can basically choose to fart out condition removals at no expences and without limiting your build diversity. (also see extended guide)
Warriors should really be the least threathening to you, they can indeed stick to you, its in their profession mechanics, but unlike the thief, you see them at all times. use your soft cc’s like frozen ground or shock wave. You also have more than enough utility skills to keep him at bay: one signet skill, two tempest skills, 2 glyphs (elemental power and storms), lightning Flash, arcane shield. and also earth shield to buy you time. try experimenting with these.

4)The staff doesn’t benefit from range like the ranger does. Especially if you’re bunker, you should stay IN the fight, IN your fields. If you run damage build, just try keeping distance as much as possible. When they’re closing in on you, either use your cc to get away or have something to deal with them in melee (like for example) earth shield or lightning flash. either way, if they want to get to you, they wil eventually except if you use the positioning of the ranger. What i’m saying is that there are no special positions for a staff ele, for this map kiting guides i’d like to refer to others.

Guizao.4167:

Fashion Mage.3712:

MrJefferson.1704:

vesica tempestas.1563:

I think that’s fair point, when you take how competitive the staff is against other weapons out of the equation (spvp in particular) and look at your guide with the viewpoint of simply trying to improve/maximize your staff game play then its good stuff.

For the moment, yes. But still i think the staff has a place in high-end spvp tough. And my next update will be able to back that statement up with footage and more comprehension. Going on and on and on about things i could just show on footage doesn’t get me aanywhere.

I’m personally looking forward to it; I’m interested in seeing how a staff ele plays in such a scenario. Staff eles are really massively underrated due to the difficulty in using them.

It’s not about the difficulty, it is about our underperforming DPS fields and utilities. Most of our utilities have long cooldowns which don’t benefit DPS eles, especially the staff elementalist. Lava font dps must be instant and tick faster because it will add much more pressure in fights. It’s not meant to be dropped at the middle of a Lightning Field, no, that’s a certain miss, but it shouldn’t allow enemies to escape so easily from it. In our current moment, every profession has easy access to swiftness and other ways to avoid damage (invul) and our soft CCs applied by staff were reducted to only immob (earth #5) and chill (water #4) but they’re easily dodgeable and have way too long cooldowns. Most people argue that they are large AoEs but then I ask you if this pays off the fact that you can still avoid them 99.9998% of the you see them? You cast a Frozen Ground, foe gets chilled for like 2s, dodge and keep running…seriously? Is it trully meant to be so avoidable and neglectable?

Think about it.

You couldn’t be more right!! I absolutely can’t hide the fact that the staff shouldn’t be indeed so hard in landing its skills, but, unfortunately, it is! Like you said, meteor shower is way to underperfoming for the cd and cast time.. instead of using the cc skills for higher purposes i have to always use them for landing my offensive skills better. But maybe that’s why the staff is so hard to use offensively (i do have to admit that it was fun, trying to think of solutions and ways and all).
Some defensive skills like healing rain, still have indeed tomuch cd time (btw, i’d be among the people who’d admit it if staff went OP but it’s far from that).
But yet again, I’m not here to start a petition to change its skills, i think that’s a lost cause, i’m just here to show that the staff has a good side too :P

Ok so, after a really, REALLY long break from gw2 i’ve been able to find some time to add a build guide to the original. You can find it in the edited comment under the Original Post. Unfortunately, I think these are the last things i’ll be able to say about the staff ele for now. So my plans of making a whole new comprehensive guide with footages and all will have to be postponed/discarded. Hopefully you’ll find enough tools in the guide to set you off on your own way.

Mr Godlike.6098:

Before serious pvp and HoT happened I started my journey with ele in wvw as staff zerk backline….thanks to experiencing being glass’est thing around I learned how to annoy, punish and survive while being chased by angry mob of angry players. Imagine how I felt when i started pvp and first time used cele.

So my advice would be: go to hotjoin -> use berserker (hardcore mode) or maruder amulet -> learn to survive on these amulets ->learn to survive on unranked ->go ranked if you feel that staff is your thing. After this steps should have right reflexes and developed muscle memory.

It’s actually easier to learn the weapon while running bunker, because it’s more forgiving and mistakes can be easier dealt with. Ofcourse, after getting the basics, nothing is stopping you from going hardcore :P

Naracion.6597:

so i am trying out pvp on ele. I have a staff build that seems to be doing ok. The last match i was in i was called a kittening idiot and was told to stay in pve. I had most healing and most revives(they kept dying). I checked out the metabattle site and my build is very simliar to tempest d/f auramancer. Am i really hindering my team that much by using staff instead of d/f?

Thanks for your time.

Staff is hands down the best support weapon on the elementalist, especially in organised team play. Not the d/f! But only when played correctly.
You should read my guide (see my signature).

vesica tempestas.1563:

I think that’s fair point, when you take how competitive the staff is against other weapons out of the equation (spvp in particular) and look at your guide with the viewpoint of simply trying to improve/maximize your staff game play then its good stuff.

For the moment, yes. But still i think the staff has a place in high-end spvp tough. And my next update will be able to back that statement up with footage and more comprehension. Going on and on and on about things i could just show on footage doesn’t get me aanywhere.

I feel like we’re diverging. This thread is only about how to be a better staff elementalist, and not about comparing it with other weapons/professions.
I don’t really care about wether or not it competes with other professions yet. I first want to show how it could be used in a smarter and more efficient way.
Like, for example, take the thief segment in my guide.
Before i knew what I wrote, i didn’t stand a chance against any thief, good or bad. These ideas in the segment, however, greatly increased my chances of victory vs thieves. And that’s exactly what the purpose of this guide is! And it’s also more targeted towards the regular to relatively experienced but not high-end players and less towards high end players because i wasn’t a consistent one when making the guide.
I’m planning to update it, however, and i’ll be giving more concrete examples with respect to high end play.

vesica tempestas.1563:

i was replying to someone else.

’ think they don’t run the staff because it takes 10 times more learning time than another weapon’

is not how high end pvp works, people cannot afford to pick weak builds, and will always switch and learn the best builds.

‘in gw2, as a staff ele, you really can’t use range to your advantage as much as the ranger can. So i never really consider range while making builds.’

Exactly, and the staff build is focused on long range, and the benefit of that range is offset, as is aoe. Otherwise you would be saying that staff is as good at ranged as it is at melee and is good at aoe as it is at melee damage. Clearly this is not the case., and could never be the case or it would be OP.

you think one thing, the vast majority of the community say otherwise and have a far greater collective knowledge. Your not the only one that has played staff for thousands of hours, and mages for far far longer. Staff is a fun weapon, but it has its place.

That first statement of mine was a wild guess, i obviously don’t know much about being a professional gw2 player.
And, well, i can’t argue about the collective knowledge.
But I think you misunderstood me concerning range. The staff does a rather good job keeping certain professions at range. But it’s not as consistent as the ranger’s ability to do that which is rightfully so since the whole profession relies a bir more on range than the elementalist. I’m also not saying that the staff is as good at range as at melee, what i’m saying is that range isn’t all that important.

“people cannot afford to pick weak builds, and will always switch and learn the best builds.”

That’s exactly what i said in my previous comment, except you replaced ‘hard to learn to use’ with ‘weak’ and ‘weapon’ with ‘build’ because there are quiet some builds that are strong on staff.
Also, i know a few other staff elementalists who’s played as long as i have but still don’t use the staff as strategically as it can be used. Ofcourse i don’t know how you do, but playing time doesn’t always convert to high play skill. That’s another reason i even made the guide.

You might be right, it might be weak.
But considering how i use it and how i would use it if i was aspiring to be a professional, there could be some spectacular/game-changing applications of it in organised teamfights, which is why i don’t understand the lack of it in high-end play.

vesica tempestas.1563:

i agree staff is about playing at range, which is not what small arena capture the point spvp is about, quite the opposite, that’s why the other ele weapons are more effective.

The simple question you can ask is how is the aoe ability of staff offset in spvp? The answer is a classic one – the reduction of sustained single player combat abilities which is ofc a well known counterbalance. Being competitive with aoe and single target at the same time with the same build would be OP and would result in massive proliferation of the build amongst high end teams. That has not happened and the collective wisdom of the GW ele community recognize this though meta builds.

See my last three posts above.

Zintrothen.1056:

Maybe this debate of whether staff has a place in high end PvP would be ended if someone ran it in a professional tournament. They, of course, won’t because D/F works so much better with the design of Tempest because it allows the Ele to survive in melee range. This also points out a huge flaw in the design of Tempest: overloads don’t work at range.

I personally think Staff can be played in top tier SPvP, and the only reason it’s not is because it lacks synergy with Tempest. So not because Staff is weak, but because D/F works better. Tempest is about tanking damage, and so is D/F, but Staff is about avoiding damage in the first place by playing at range, and Tempest is designed as a close range spec with no synergy outside of Water and Earth trait line and close range focused weapons.

1) I think they don’t run the staff because it takes 10 times more learning time than another weapon, and they can’t slip that time in their schedule of being up to date in other classes/weapons, maintaining their omnifarious mechanical skill and game tactics. so if they don’t make as much progress in learning it as in learning the d/d for example, they say it’s too weak and give up on it.

2) D/F doesn’t work “so much better” with tempest. You have just as much (if not more) access to aura’s with staff, and you have more possibility in keeping your opponentS in your fields. And why can’t staff be used in melee range?

3) you’re not obliged to stay at range when using staff, only for troll builds or for nonviable glass builds. But especially not for bunker builds. I myself always make my builds with melee range in mind. Because it’s kinda inevitable.

4) Staff is NOT about avoiding damage, absolutely not. it’s about negating them. So you CAN tank them as well. Especially when playing bunker, you want to be in the point, tanking damage and negating them for your teammate trough your heals and strategic placing of your fields.
Needing to avoid damage trough range depends solely on your build and skill and NOT because the staff has a 1200 units range.
In gw2, as a staff ele, you really can’t use range to your advantage as much as the ranger can. So i never really consider range while making builds.

A lot of people think staffies are at any time obliged to stay at range, this is not true.

vesica tempestas.1563:

^^ and this is the point, the goal of spvp is always to play in great balanced group pvp and a trait of this is not fights where you are left to aoe freely or kite out of trouble continually, that’s relying on players playing badly. In reality what matters is communication, players that know to keep- moving at all times, and observation, for e.g when someone is free to lay aoe down. All of which counter staff spvp.

That’s not to say staff is not fun and has a place in casual spvp, but its wrong to say its relatively effective because it has weaknesses that are an integral part of the build (aoe v single target)

see my last post above.

cursE.1794:

Sure, if you run a full berserker build with signet of earth and arcane blast, you will instagib a lot of opponents. …

…

1) Running a build like that will indeed highten your access to easier damage output, but it gives absolutely no survivability. People who run that build do not care for getting 1-shot at all, as long as they can keep one-shotting people. That’s why it’s called a troll build, why whould any1 in their right mind EVER run that build in a serious 1v1 or a legit match.

2) The bunker healer build is of course never meant to kill any decent players on it’s own, if this was easily achievable, the game would be seriously inbalanced. But considering that the objective of structured pvp is to hold capture points, you can’t deny it to be a serious pain to get all the damaging fields of the staff put on one point forcing you to stay on the point or suck up all the aoe. Even for a bunker elementalist, i guarantee you, it will still hurt if you’re running a build ranged between glass and hybrid (other bunker builds won’t really feel anything) and if he/she does it right.

A thing to also consider is that the glyph of elementals’ fire elemental has it’s own stats, so even if you’re bunker it still has a massive damage output, and if you use it the way i use it in this video in conjunction with my cc’s you’ll be able to down more people than you think. Granted, that warrior wasn’t so good, but that doesn’t matter, any1 who doesn’t leave the point would’ve taken the damage, notice how he also nullifies and evade most of my heavy damages (meteor for example) eventually, if i manage to lock you down like i did to him at the end, you’re done for it.

Now, for the actual role of the bunker healer, staff is hands down the best off all the weapons. To give an example: when cleric was still available, i could easily hold a point against 2 decent players or 3 mediocre ones for a VERY long time. I was never able to do this with another weapon set. Because their maximum healing/sustain output is nowhere near the staff’s.

3) It’s a standard tought that the staff has toomuch weaknesses, but that’s more because of it’s high skill cap and less because of it’s skills. I think i made it clear that the staff is really hard, but that i’m also trying to prove that, if you really like it and you become good with it, you can use it in any game mode, including 1v1’s. Because it also has advantages that can’t be found in other weap set.

4) “Staff shines if you are going more or less untouched, cast a lot of AoE in teamfights and kite if you get focused. D/F shines when playing against organized teams where people work together to lock you down and it’s also better in 1v1s.”

Staff doesn’t only shine if you go more or less untouched You are not forced to play full berserk troll!! having one competent staffie in the team can honestly make the whole team to absorb a massive amount of enemy damage and staying unharmed. This effect is even stronger when the staff ele is working in an organised team, because then, all your fields would be put to good use and will reach their full potential!! This way, some1 being focused (the staffie or any1 else) won’t feel it as much as in pug-groups. But honestly, if i play bunker, i’d really want to be focused.

If i’m playing glass on the other hand, if they’re persistent in focusing me, getting downed would be inevitable, but preventing that is not the main purpose of my berserk build. My build is designed to hold out the focus for as long as possible because, especially for organised play, time is extremely important, the longer i survive the focus, the more my teammates can do in the meantime. This “timewinning” mostly involves kiting away, drawing the focus out of the point we’re fighting over. so either I draw them out or they give up focus on me. Being able to land devastating skills on points is worth your now-and-then brief absence due to focus on you in a teamfight.

I’m not trying to say, the staff ele is the best, i’m trying to get it out of the pits of preconceptions, oblivion and ignorance.

5) Last but not least, It’s true that D/F is more single-target based. That doesn’t necessarily means it’s better. I personally find this to be a rather subjective thing because every1 has it’s game mode preferences. But, yet again, i’m not trying to compare weapon sets. Just merely want to show the positive sides of the staff. And to help people who really like the weapon but don’t want to use it because of the hate he/she gets or its high skill cap.

It’s been, like, a year. You’ve made the Frost bow more usefull but still haven’t done a thing about skill 5 (deep freeze).
It still stuns for only 3 secs.

cursE.1794:

Staff is a really good choice as a weapon in team fights but you have to distinguish between the levels of pvp:

In the pro league with opponents communicating over teamspeak, you will not see staff because the defensive capabilities of focus are necessary to avoid being locked down.

In soloq or non-professional ranked play however, staff is one of the most underrated weapons in the entire game. Because basically every spell you cast is worth 3x the damage/cc/healing than what you get from d/f. You also have great kiting capabilites with fire #4 and water #4. As long as you’re not locked down by a team who knows what they’re doing, staff makes the biggest difference in a teamfight.

In 1v1 however, staff won’t kill anything except the worst players.

So, you’re saying that, no matter how good you are, any staff build you choose to run in pro league or in a 1v1 against any good player of any class/wep would be useless and that you’ll always fail the match or lose the 1v1?
Also, i personaly think you highly underestimate the defensive capability of staff, i also think it’s superior to focus. But before i say why
I legitimately need to know what you mean with the rest of your post.

Zintrothen.1056:

MrJefferson.1704:

Repartees.9632:

MrJefferson.1704:

Repartees.9632:

MrJefferson.1704:

Repartees.9632:

I’m not sure how you will beat any halfway decent thief with staff, it has all the weaknesses of D/F against thief and the only upside is a bit more CC that you will never get off when fighting a good thief.

Have you read the guide?
See, …
…

No, you’re missing the point, it’s not whether you can hit the thief with your CC, it’s whether you can even cast it. A proficient thief will be able to headshot almost all your skills with cast times with the exception of maybe unsteady ground. Furthermore, everytime a thief initiates on you, he will either have basi, and/or shadowshot. So, in order to land your CC, you’ll need to clear the blind with your slow kitten attacks and then CC.

No, i’m not missing your point, …
…

Everytime a thief interrupts, they do around 3k unmitigatable damage. Staff ele’s shortest cast time is unstable ground at 1/4s, everything else is at 3/4s. That is simple to interrupt. I’m not sure you realise how much this disrupts a class. Have you ever duelled any proficient thieves? Ever?

I’ll assume we’re talking about the berserk spec here
.
1) The 3k you’re talking about is critical damage, if you attack or interrupt me when i’m in earth (which i will be for, like, 80% of the time you do that) stone heart will be up, meaning you won’t crit me, meaning you’ll only be hitting me for around 0.8 k. So.. yeah, the damage is pretty mitigatable.

If that 3k is from Pulmonary Impact, then it’s not critical damage. That damage cannot crit. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Pulmonary_Impact_

That’s one hell of a trait, which i didn’t take in to account.. with the daredevil being able to interrupt so often.. i actually think it’s kinda op. But of course that’s not why we’re here. I’ll be looking in to that.

Repartees.9632:

MrJefferson.1704:

Repartees.9632:

MrJefferson.1704:

Repartees.9632:

I’m not sure how you will beat any halfway decent thief with staff, it has all the weaknesses of D/F against thief and the only upside is a bit more CC that you will never get off when fighting a good thief.

Have you read the guide?
See, …
…

No, you’re missing the point, it’s not whether you can hit the thief with your CC, it’s whether you can even cast it. A proficient thief will be able to headshot almost all your skills with cast times with the exception of maybe unsteady ground. Furthermore, everytime a thief initiates on you, he will either have basi, and/or shadowshot. So, in order to land your CC, you’ll need to clear the blind with your slow kitten attacks and then CC.

No, i’m not missing your point, …
…

Everytime a thief interrupts, they do around 3k unmitigatable damage. Staff ele’s shortest cast time is unstable ground at 1/4s, everything else is at 3/4s. That is simple to interrupt. I’m not sure you realise how much this disrupts a class. Have you ever duelled any proficient thieves? Ever?

I’ll assume we’re talking about the berserk spec here
.
1) The 3k you’re talking about is critical damage, if you attack or interrupt me when i’m in earth (which i will be for, like, 80% of the time you do that) stone heart will be up, meaning you won’t crit me, meaning you’ll only be hitting me for around 0.8 k. So.. yeah, the damage is pretty mitigatable.

2) Lava font, burning retreat, frozen ground, gust, windborne speed and magnetic aura all have a cast time less than or equal to unsteady ground. That’s 7 out of 20 staff skills with ‘low’ cast time. Also, notice how they’re mostly defensive. Lava font is also used defensively. So no, not much of a disruption.

3) I’ve never won a decent fight by only using the weapon skills, the power in the staff is not how fast the skills cast, but instead how much synergy it has with the other skills of slots 6 to 10.
In the events a thief is really really, really good, and knows the staff skills and their animations really well, it’s unavoidable he/she interrupts some crucial skills. Luckily you can’t do this constantly and when you’re able to, i’ll be able to counter it most of the time.
If we both play ideally and we make no mistakes, your window of opportunity (to use interrupt effectively) would be minimal.
But then again i’ll also be looking for a window. its more a question of who finds his first and who manages to use it to down the other.

Edit:

I’m not saying the berserk staff is unbeatable by a thief. I am saying it’s viable anough (which is already more than what the community thinks) and that it IS POSSIBLE to beat even the best thieves while equiped with it and running berserk). On any other kind of build, thieves should’nt be a problem for staffies.

Of course I can’t really know how good the thieves were that i’ve been fighting, there are some good ones i’ve fought but of course that’s my opinion. so when i’m done with my busy RL i’ll try contacting some of the best thieves so i can either prove my point or admit yours.

Edit:
I forgot pulmonary impact. Which is an extremely strong trait i don’t know how to counter for the moment..

Edit 2:
With pulmonary impact your interruptions would be a pain. But there are ways around, with all interruptions going on.. it will be just a matter of time before i’m downed. Luckily i can choose my moment of immunity to interrupt by my access to stability, reflect and invulnerability. Altough it’s quiet minimal, if you don’t know my strategy (which i regret pointing out in details here) there’s still a decent chance of winning.

vesica tempestas.1563:

MrJefferson.1704:

vesica tempestas.1563:

MrJefferson.1704:

Repartees.9632:

I’m not sure how you will beat any halfway decent thief with staff, it has all the weaknesses of D/F against thief and the only upside is a bit more CC that you will never get off when fighting a good thief.

to put it simply, pick the right tool for the job, and you are only as good as your tool.

Have you read the guide?
See, first of all, it isn’t of essence to try chasing the thief around with your mouse to land your fields on them.
If you’re a thief and you’re fighting a staffie (or any other class) if you want to win, you’ll eventually have to come out of hiding to deal damage, no matter how good you are. A good staff elementalist will recognise that chasing you is pointless and will instead wait for these moments where you try to attack. In these moments, a good staffie is able to neutralise your damage and return heavy damage while temporarily keeping you from running away. In short: the staffie is making you pay for the damage you want to deal. Combine that with the fact that thieves have very little access to stunbreakers and you have a succesfull strategy.
Please don’t say “a bit more cc”. The staff has waaay more effective cc’s than the D/F could ever dream of.
As a thief, if you never get cc’ed by a staff ele, it isn’t because you’re a decent player, but because the staffie you’re fighting is REALLY, REALLY new in it!

An equally skilled player will not allow you to cc them in AOE. I like and enjoy Staff, but it is not up to par in spvp against equally skilled players who are watching what you are casting and what cooldowns you are on. You also have to consider the opportunity cost to the team by not picking a stronger build that has more skirmish options.

Put i this way, usually when i spot a staffie I pressure their faces off with glee. Ask yourself how you would beat a staff ele in his tracks and you will see the problems.

What i just wrote (see previous comment) applies to your comment as well. But i’ll add this: It really doesn’t matter if you know every cd i’m on, knowing them doesn’t mean you’ll be able to interrupt/negate all of them if i know what i’m doing. If this was possible, gw2 wouldn’t be that interesting for high-end players. The idea is to use the knowledge of your oppontents skill use efficiently, and that’s waaay harder and that’s also what every player in the community tries to achieve.
Besides, keep in mind that i’d also be watching yours (at least the most important ones).

Again: Seriously, don’t you think i’d think all these obvious things trough before I even start a guide? I know the staffs alleged weaknesses, not only because it’s all that ever gets whined about!
So yes! I’ve asked myself plenty of times how i’d beat a staff with most classes, ESPECIALLY THIEF, i’ve recognised the problems, and i’m trying to show people how i try to minimize the mignitude of these ‘problems’ while making it not affect your prefered build.

Al these asides, I’m not talking about builds, i’m talking about staff elementalist in general. If you’re talking about my berzerk build in particular, what do you mean with “more skirmish options”? Please elaborate.

you keep talking about your guide (which is a good guide) and your personal knowledge as if this solves the fundamental issues which is that like for like, EQUALLY skilled players can only be as good as how close your chosen spec is to the perfect setup for the chosen arena, which in this case is small group melee pvp. As for skirmishing, i’m talking about being able to take a point from another EQUALLY skilled player, or playing 2 v 2 close combat, or being able to fight back when you are called as primary target without running away, or being able to burn down a mobile single target who knows how to avoid your telegraphed attacks etc.

Wait, are you talking about the staff ele in general? Or just the berserk build? I need to know that before i can give any valable argument.

PlagueParade.7942:

I understand that you are teaching to learn skills but beginning staffies, beginning eles that want to use staff will be flummoxed on what to use in their traits. You say start out as bunker staff to stay alive and learn how to use your staff skills and utilities but at the very least having a section on traits and how to put them too good use with your skills would be a great help towards learning this difficult class weapon.

You’re right, i’ll be working on this! thanks

vesica tempestas.1563:

MrJefferson.1704:

Repartees.9632:

I’m not sure how you will beat any halfway decent thief with staff, it has all the weaknesses of D/F against thief and the only upside is a bit more CC that you will never get off when fighting a good thief.

Have you read the guide?
See, first of all, it isn’t of essence to try chasing the thief around with your mouse to land your fields on them.
If you’re a thief and you’re fighting a staffie (or any other class) if you want to win, you’ll eventually have to come out of hiding to deal damage, no matter how good you are. A good staff elementalist will recognise that chasing you is pointless and will instead wait for these moments where you try to attack. In these moments, a good staffie is able to neutralise your damage and return heavy damage while temporarily keeping you from running away. In short: the staffie is making you pay for the damage you want to deal. Combine that with the fact that thieves have very little access to stunbreakers and you have a succesfull strategy.
Please don’t say “a bit more cc”. The staff has waaay more effective cc’s than the D/F could ever dream of.
As a thief, if you never get cc’ed by a staff ele, it isn’t because you’re a decent player, but because the staffie you’re fighting is REALLY, REALLY new in it!

An equally skilled player will not allow you to cc them in AOE. I like and enjoy Staff, but it is not up to par in spvp against equally skilled players who are watching what you are casting and what cooldowns you are on. You also have to consider the opportunity cost to the team by not picking a stronger build that has more skirmish options.

Put i this way, usually when i spot a staffie I pressure their faces off with glee. Ask yourself how you would beat a staff ele in his tracks and you will see the problems.

What i just wrote (see previous comment) applies to your comment as well. But i’ll add this: It really doesn’t matter if you know every cd i’m on, knowing them doesn’t mean you’ll be able to interrupt/negate all of them if i know what i’m doing. If this was possible, gw2 wouldn’t be that interesting for high-end players. The idea is to use the knowledge of your oppontents skill use efficiently, and that’s waaay harder and that’s also what every player in the community tries to achieve.
Besides, keep in mind that i’d also be watching yours (at least the most important ones).

Again: Seriously, don’t you think i’d think all these obvious things trough before I even start a guide? I know the staffs alleged weaknesses, not only because it’s all that ever gets whined about!
So yes! I’ve asked myself plenty of times how i’d beat a staff with most classes, ESPECIALLY THIEF, i’ve recognised the problems, and i’m trying to show people how i try to minimize the mignitude of these ‘problems’ while making it not affect your prefered build.

Al these asides, I’m not talking about builds, i’m talking about staff elementalist in general. If you’re talking about my berzerk build in particular, what do you mean with “more skirmish options”? Please elaborate.

Repartees.9632:

MrJefferson.1704:

Repartees.9632:

I’m not sure how you will beat any halfway decent thief with staff, it has all the weaknesses of D/F against thief and the only upside is a bit more CC that you will never get off when fighting a good thief.

Have you read the guide?
See, first of all, it isn’t of essence to try chasing the thief around with your mouse to land your fields on them.
If you’re a thief and you’re fighting a staffie (or any other class) if you want to win, you’ll eventually have to come out of hiding to deal damage, no matter how good you are. A good staff elementalist will recognise that chasing you is pointless and will instead wait for these moments where you try to attack. In these moments, a good staffie is able to neutralise your damage and return heavy damage while temporarily keeping you from running away. In short: the staffie is making you pay for the damage you want to deal. Combine that with the fact that thieves have very little access to stunbreakers and you have a succesfull strategy.
Please don’t say “a bit more cc”. The staff has waaay more effective cc’s than the D/F could ever dream of.
As a thief, if you never get cc’ed by a staff ele, it isn’t because you’re a decent player, but because the staffie you’re fighting is REALLY, REALLY new in it!

No, you’re missing the point, it’s not whether you can hit the thief with your CC, it’s whether you can even cast it. A proficient thief will be able to headshot almost all your skills with cast times with the exception of maybe unsteady ground. Furthermore, everytime a thief initiates on you, he will either have basi, and/or shadowshot. So, in order to land your CC, you’ll need to clear the blind with your slow kitten attacks and then CC.

No, i’m not missing your point, i’m trying to tell you that it’s invalid.
You don’t seem to understand.

1) When you interrupt some1 it means that you put the skill that he/she was using on a 5 sec. cooldown.

2) I’m guessing with “almost all your skills” you mean my defensive skills, because i primarily use my long casting offensive skills to lure out interrupts against a thief, so when you interrupt these you’re doing me a favor.

3)The only situation where interrupting me gives you an upper hand in a fight is when you open up on me, in that moment, you can’t interupt all my skills because you’ll be too busy trying to do something more useful/resourceful. And even if you did try it, not only would you be wasting a good opportunity, but it won’t be anough, i have more skills of the same type than your headshots can handle. And i’m not even including utility skills. So the ultimate way to make good of your headshot, is to headshot me once and then follow up with burst before i can use another, but similar, skill.
So i can fill up the 5 seconds window by trying to use another countering/cc’ing skill. Therefore it’s impossible for “a proficient thief” to keep headshotting almost all my skills with cast time in an effective way.

4) You talk about blind like it’s stability, i don’t know about the hard cc’s of other classes or weapon sets, but last time i checked, my wall (=unsteady ground) and my static fields are NOT AFFECTED by blind! these are only and exclusively ineffective against stability, which, guess what, the thief virtually has NO access to! Plus the amount of cc skills on the elementalist that are effected by blind is quite marginal. So, no.. I do NOT need to clear the blind with my “slow ‘kitten’ attacks and then CC”!
So your argument on shadowshot is invalid.

5) Now, about basi, first notice the cooldown (=40s).
I have multiple ways to counter this, one more effective than the other.
My most effective one is tempest defence trait (in air line; has a 25sec cd) and of course the usual utility stun breakers. You can understand that i won’t be using these if not necessary and even if you already procced the tempest defence trait, I’ll always have a skill ready to counter.
These skills are not slow casting, in fact, if you knew the staff well, you’d know that it’s the offensive skills in general that are slow casting, the defensive ones have a decent to no cast time!

I know the staffs alleged weaknesses, not only because it’s all that ever gets whined about!

Repartees.9632:

I’m not sure how you will beat any halfway decent thief with staff, it has all the weaknesses of D/F against thief and the only upside is a bit more CC that you will never get off when fighting a good thief.

Have you read the guide?
See, first of all, it isn’t of essence to try chasing the thief around with your mouse to land your fields on them.
If you’re a thief and you’re fighting a staffie (or any other class) if you want to win, you’ll eventually have to come out of hiding to deal damage, no matter how good you are. A good staff elementalist will recognise that chasing you is pointless and will instead wait for these moments where you try to attack. In these moments, a good staffie is able to neutralise your damage and return heavy damage while temporarily keeping you from running away. In short: the staffie is making you pay for the damage you want to deal. Combine that with the fact that thieves have very little access to stunbreakers and you have a succesfull strategy.
Please don’t say “a bit more cc”. The staff has waaay more effective cc’s than the D/F could ever dream of.
As a thief, if you never get cc’ed by a staff ele, it isn’t because you’re a decent player, but because the staffie you’re fighting is REALLY, REALLY new in it!

PlagueParade.7942:

Read and watched your guide and I enjoyed it. There are a few things that I would have liked to see that haven’t been in there. Such as: When to use certain conjured weapons against the other teams group comps, like do you always use LH if a thief is on the other team etc.

Well, honestly, i used my LH a lot more and especially when there are a lot of ennemy thieves, before i learned how to use the ES properly, ES has waaaaay more utility and a greater variety of situations where it’s top utility wep of choice. But its compensated by a higher difficulty to use. Once I understood the ES, i don’t really use the LH anymore, except if I want to play around a bit with the thieves and basically oneshot them. Especially when they’re with 3 or more thieves in the enemy comp.
The LH is a go-ham weapon and has little viability (except you find a way to use your LH efficiently in a defensive way), the ES is essentially just as effective but gives you more viability and works in better sync with your staff skills.
Keep in mind that i’m talking with the berserk build in mind. When running anyrhing else, the LH is less usefull.
Ofcourse you don’t need these weps if you prefer another utility skill. But ES has proven to usefull to me when running berserk.

PlagueParade.7942:

… and possibly some builds, beginner, medium, expert explaining why the particular traits, utilites would be used. A nice foundation to get beginner staffies started would be great

As a beginning staff, you should go with most bunkery build available, hands down! The builds aren’t as important as actually knowing what you’re doing. Going in max bunker will speed up the learning process since you’ll be spending less time in dying an thus more time in learning. Before you know it.. you be more experienced to come up with your own builds and experimenting becomes fun!

Abelisk.4527:

Staff ele is hands down the most rewarding and most difficult weapon to use with an ele in sPvP.

I, like you, love AoE’s. But if your opponent is mobile it can be stressful sometimes landing a hit. However, I have yet to try staff in sPvP extensively, but if you’re aggroed (e.g. in a 1v1), you can have some very nice protective benefits from your AoE stacks on you. Have a ranger that is unaffected? No problem, use magnetic aura and ES. This build is so beautiful because there are so many few players with it – yet – it’s one of the most hardcore builds out there. I’ll give it a shot, hopefully my hair is intact within a month’s time XD

Staff is indeed a hardcore pvp weapon, but it’s difficulty is compensated by the benefits of being good with it and it’s REALLY rewarding! :P

Zintrothen.1056:

I enjoyed the guide! I really like that you went into what a rotation is. I kept hearing that term but just assuming it meant a short combo. I also liked that you explained some of the uses of Conjures, which don’t get any love nowadays.

Something I think would be really helpful to add is the info that you can switch attunements while casting (exception being Overloads). This is especially hand with Meteor Shower. You start casting it, and swap to any attunement for the passive effects or to get a head start on the Overload CD. And speaking of Meteor Shower, you can also cast Lightning Flash anywhere while casting it and it won’t cancel. This includes casting from max range and getting even more range! So in a way, you can sort of cast Meteor Shower from 2100 range! None of this really strictly applies to staff, but it’s always helpful to have it mentioned in any guide because every Ele should know about casting/swapping trick, and I think it’s especially useful with staff because of the long cast times like MS.

Another trick I find handy for mobility is doing a 180 turn around (a very handy bind to have) and then popping Burning Speed. This is helpful for making unexpected movements, escaping and map mobility.

These tricks seem obvious to me that I forgot to put them in the guide, but you’re completely right, i’l br updatinh the guide. Thank you!

Alekt.5803:

Hey. I see you’ve been using Conjure Earth Shield. Good. I don’t agree with Lightning Hammer being any good, though.

LH isn’t that great either, it’s too situational and ES can do most of thesame things and has more utility. But I can’t deny the power of LH when it’s in its element and when fighting classes like thieves.

Alekt.5803:

But, you talk about Flame Axe’s Ring of Fire. Has this one been fixed to be the current version of RoF of the dagger? Or is it still the old 1 burn version?

It’s still the old one I think, and It should stay this way, I also think the devs meant for it to stay that way, because it should pay off when sacrificing a utility slot for the FA.
It was RoF on dagger that needed to be “fixed” such a strong skill on such a level of availability would be OP.

Alekt.5803:

One big issue with Guild Wars 2 and the “community” is the massive disparity in gameplay. I’ve been looking at some of the video and I must say this. Your opponents are not impressive. It seems to me that you are in a completely different universe where it is okay to use bad utilities like Arcane Brillance (when the buffed Glyph of Elemental Harmony should be used, or Wash the Pain Away). And most over, how a berserker amulet is used with so little consequences.

If you had fully read my guide you would’ve known the reason I use Arcane Brilliance AND the reason why berserk is used “with so little consequences”.

First of all, i don’t have preference in healing skills, Arcane Brilliance is not the only healing skill i use in my videos! But There are situations where one healing skill is better than the other. Arcane Brilliance for example, is an excellent blast finisher and is virtually non-interruptable. Using Glyph of elemental Harmony, on the other hand, becomes problematic when you’re playing against skilled players who know exaclty when to interrupt, because it’s such an obvious cast. It’s not because a skill is buffed that it’s obligatory to use it! And wash the pain away maybe has a lower cd but also a lower base heal, I use it when i’m playing support not when being berserk.

Secondly, I don’t run berserk with such little conequences, i just manage to survive, getting away or defeating them when i’m getting focused. Getting as much enemy aggro on your teamplayers instead of you and trying to hide the fact that you’re berserk also doesn’t hurt your chances of surviving.

Alekt.5803:

One question. I don’t see you using Tempest in your videos. Why? It seems to be like it would completely complement your liking of Earth Shield? Earth Shield 3 (Lightning Rod) -> Earth Overload -> Swap to Air (Lightning bolt). Or simply Earth Shield 4 back into the AoEs?

Please, I beg you, Read my guide properly and watch ALL my video’s first.

Fashion Mage.3712:

If you can keep them in the AoEs yourself, then sure, but staff eles aren’t really optimal for dueling.

I find wether or not something is optimal for dueling to be rather subjective. Don’t get me wrong, You might be right, but yet again, I really liked the aesthetics of the staff and its skills when i started playing it. Because of this, I never really cared if it’s optimal or not, and in the process of liking it too much, i’ve found ways to diminish its weaknesses. And now i find it to do quite a good job in dueling.

Fashion Mage.3712:

Elemental Surge’s immobilize got buffed a bunch, so that’ll be fairly easy to do if the enemy doesn’t have a cleanse available, but chances are they probably do.

First of all, you say it yourself, there are chances they have cleanses available, but my first solution to this was to keep track of their cleanses used, this way you bump up the chances of them not having a cleanse available.
Secondly, after a while, you’ll come to realise that it really doesn’t matter if they have cleanses on cd or not. The staff doesn’t rely fully on condition cc, but also on hard cc. It’s up to you to chose which one you use at a certain moment, that isn’t difficult and if you do it right, you won’t be needing to rely on those chances.

Fashion Mage.3712:

The only other reliable ranged alternative is using the frost bow in conjunction with an immobilize to freeze them.

That’s not the only reliable one, all your other cc skills are ranged too. And the most reliable of them all is static field.
And frankly, the frost bow is REALLY kittenty for the moment… But if the FB5 skill is “repaired” it could indeed make way for some interesting gameplay.

Fashion Mage.3712:

Denying the area around the user is a bit tougher since the best AoE skills have big cast times (Meteor Shower, Ice Storm, Air Overload), but I suppose it’s also possible.

Every fight ever is flooded with windows of opportunities to cast these, not to mention that you can create them yourself by combining them with other skills.

Fashion Mage.3712:

If you catch out thieves and stuff like that, you’d probably be able to stun and burst them, but against the likes of warriors who have stability, invulnerability, and blocking skills coming out of every orifice, it’ll be a bit tougher I think.

Honestly, I never had a problem with these likes. Not even when I didn’t know much about the staff.. I don’t know why it is, but i’ve always find them easier to fight against than any other type. I feel they’re easily kited, but most of all, i find them more predictable than the likes of thieves or mesmers. Maybe that’s why I never really had a problem with them, in this video i fight a a block guardian. Because most of them are melee, you don’t even need any cc for them, just stay in your fields
The way I see it: as far as i can see my opponent and as far as he/she doesn’t have teleports for days (because that’s the only way to escape), there’s nothing to fear.

Fashion Mage.3712:

Something people often ignore about AoEs is the fact that they provide area denial. If a bunch of people jump onto an ally in an attempt to kitten them, a lava font+meteor shower has a good chance of either killing them all, or getting them off of the location of your ally. This is also usually a scenario that pops up for cleaving for/against someone rezzing. Since PvP is point-based, this is even more of the case. In this case, the AoEs can be avoided, but if they’re placed properly, they’ll be avoided at a consequence.

There’s also the scenario of placing an AoE on somebody, and then either the user or an ally CCs them so they can’t move out.

tl;dr: AoEs are fine if they’re used with a brain and not for the purposes of dueling.

You’re right, ecxept for your tl;dr..
Why wouldn’t the staff be able to duel if you can keep them in your fields yourself and if you can deny especially melee players the area around yourself?

I’m just going to put this here: (see signature)

casper.9184:

I think you need a Mod to promote your post to the top.

Looking forward to see your guide.

Here’s My guide

But how do i get to a mod?

Edit:

I think i need to go to “submit a request”

Black Resonance.6921:

Thanks Xillllix that helped to clarify as to why I finding the class awkward to deal with.
I will most likely stick with my warrior abit more. Thanks again for the reply

Don’t Give up on the staff ele just yet.

It’s true that the ele in general has been nerfed, but this should be temporary. In the meantime you could still have fun:

you should check my staff ele pvp guide

vesica tempestas.1563:

‘There’s a central dogma in the gw2 community that sees the staff elementalist’

its not really a GW2 dogma, you can see it in every single MMO, a build cannot be aoe centric and at the same time be powerful 1v1.

Why not?
There’s absolutely no correlation between AoE and bad in pvp. The only MMO’s where your statement could be valid are the ones where AoE’s aren’t accompanied by cc abilities and gw2 is nowhere close from being one of them..

vesica tempestas.1563:

GW2 is no different, powerful AOE but equally skilled players they will avoid your aoe

Every opponent who’s NOT stupid will try to avoid AoE! That’s perfectly obvious. The core design of the staff is built on this fact and to prevent that fact. And on its turn all professions are built so that they can’t avoid ALL your cc’s, not even thieves. Half of my guide explains this concept and how to use it!
You make it sound like staff is utterly useless in all kind of pvp and only made for pve. In that case, why would we have so much cc? A.I. is so kittened that frozen ground and shock wave/unsteady ground would be sufficient. The rest would just be damage skills.

vesica tempestas.1563:

then you are in trouble and costing your team time and resource.

My AoE supporting fields cause the exact opposite. You’d be surprised how easily fields get blasted without people even focusing on blasting.. they’re busy focusing on the fight but in the meantime they’re healing themself op (when i cast healing rain for example).

So they don’t need to stop what they’re doing AND they don’t need to waste their healing skills..
That awfully seems like a lot of resources AND time saved…

Please take the time to first check this link
And to subsequently read the whole guide.

Pelto.9364:

I would like to know what skills can be casted/used simultaneously. I usually wait until casting ends before using next skill or util. Too many times meteor shower is self-interrupted, for example.

For so many times I have been frustated to ele – and staff ele in wvw. It is incredible squishy compared to equally squishy necro and mesmer (light armors). Staff ele is worse of them because there seems to be no change to make damage to enemies before staff ele goes down. Today in 4 different incident (all 1v1) very low ranked enemies killed my ele too easily. Even SM’s veteran scout killed my ele before I could kill vet scout (switched back to gs+lb ranger and no problems of this magnitude).

The only thing I can say about this is that you should experiment on it… You can’t cast channeled skills at the same time but you can mostly give command for a next skill execution while you skill is still channeling.
Also, it’s indeed easier to kill a scout with another, less squish profession, you just need to practice in order for you to succeed. (record your gameplay, this way you learn 5 times faster)

Pelto.9364:

I would like to see new elementalist profession. Two weapon sets; mixed but meaningful weapon skill sets. E.g., skills 4 and 5: big water and meteor shower, for wvw zerg purposes. Fire-only, water-only etc may not be the best for casual players.

I don’t think this is worth the trouble of making an entirely new profession…

Ghataka.1604:

Just for the effort put in the format i’m gonna try the build for a couple of days to see how it goes. Good to see non-victimhood eles for once, some people prefer to cry instead of working with what they have at the moment. I’ll report with feedback..

Who says I haven’t cried xS (T_T)

xD

Tomiyou.3790:

I wanna see you beat a rev 1v1 while glass cannon (berserker amulet) (a good rev, not some cannon fodder typical PvP player), then we will talk about staff having some place in PvP.

First of all, have you seen this? The rev i’m fighting might not be the best one, but if i didn’t act accordingly to avoid/minimize most of his skills i’d be dead either way.

Secondly, if you’re gonna actually duel a rev, why would you go berserk when there are other, more victory-assuring builds? i’m not saying it’s impossible to take on a good rev on berserk, just saying i wouldn’t recommend it, especially if you don’t know the revenant profession that well.

Here you see me dueling a rev. Granted, I was running cleric, but i really could use any other amulet in the duel. (the cleric amulet only made it possible for me to keep up a 1v3 :P)
Notice how I toss her around with my cc’s.

Honestly, it isn’t really that special to beat a rev with staff equiped..
but i’ll try posting a berserk duel with a decent revenant when i find the time to “un-rusty” myself

Tomiyou.3790:

Nice guide nevertheless, pretty in depth and shame staff is pretty much useless in PvP, as it is outclassed by everything else. Playing for the sake of playing it, not fun or victorious tho.
Edit: I tried staff ele in sPvP and got rekt pretty kitten hard despite maining this class for 2 years. Anyway, berserker ammy might not be the best choice for someone who isn’t used to it.

I play the staff elementalist because I like the concept, the skill and the overall mechanic. Despite of it being (falsely) deemed useless, i play it for fun, not for the sake of playing it. I want to be victorious but don’t need to lose the fun in the process.
You mained this class for two years but i’m guessing you didn’t spend that much time on staff.. I wasn’t used to berserk either, but you get used to it after playing bunker for a while. Bunker is more forgiving, until you learn how to avoid damage and play ideally.

Tomiyou.3790:

One last question. How in the world did you manage to get 14 stacks of burning on a thief in one of your videos??

conjure flame axe and
ring of fire

I managed to lure her to step over all my fire fields multiple times. I Think i explained it somewhere in the videos or in my guide in the conjures segment. Please try reading of it, or looking at all the videos

It seems that you missed out on a few things about the elementalist despite your 2 years. I don’t blame you tough, there are things I only realised after playing for more than 2 years

reserved for editing…

First extension of the guide (traits and builds):
link

You’ll find the guide HERE

I decided to not write it here as a post since it’s a lot easier to design the layout and to form hyperlinks in a more dedicated program (word).

Whenever you want to address anything from the guide as a quote, please, do it here and do it the following way:

1. Quote this very post.
2. Copy the part of the guide you want to address.
3. Paste it in the assigned area where a quoted tekst should be(replacing the originally quoted post in the process).
4. Resume doing what you would normally do when quoting/replying to something on this site.

Feedback is always welcome!

I’m about to finish and post a guide about staff ele in pvp..
When I do, How do I get the thread above the line?
That is, how do i make it at all times visible and on the first page like zelyhn’s guide?

Daniel Handler.4816:

Your best bunker has 300 less toughness, and 3000 less health than Druid and none of the damage. Why would I use either in ranked matches?

1:
that’s not the bunker build, that’s the healer build that should mimic (and is even stronger than) the healing support of the cleric in big brawls.

2:
Health points are, for an elementalist not really that big of a deal, as it is for other classes. Especially because the ele has the lowest hp base in the game we make up for it in mechanics. I never really pay attention to the health when making a build. Most of my builds are around the base (11k), just like with cleric or when i go full berzerk. The way i see it, the 9k increase in health complements the decrease in tougness and that’s all i need really. while the overall healing power is even better now. so, if i had 3k more health, it would be kinda OP.

3:
the toughness is less important in the healer build than in the tank one because the role you aim for is not to tank 3 players but to keep your team up during team fights. or to be able to win 1v1’s which is quiet possible, notice that i have way more critical chance, so i hit just as hard as the cleric, which is al that’s needed really. again, not with specs but with mechanics.

4:
I think the healer build has more heal support than the druid, it’s more consistent, and it’s also in it’s real element when in organised teams where others could help blast your fields.

My best bunker is the first build where i have over 3k toughness and way more damage than i wished for. I’d rather have just 250 healing instead though, than those 900 points in power. I don’t know the druid this well but i think it’s in the very core mechanic of the staff ele to be able to stay on point and potentially hold out a 3v1.

Also, i’m not comparing these builds to other classes, i’m comparing it to the cleric build, which worked so well. And i’m sure that even when running cleric, there’s always another class that has more in a certain set of stats. If you would choose cleric on you druid over cleric on elementalist, why would you use either of my proposed builds now? My point is: i’m gonna take a guess and say that you would’nt run the staff elementalist even when cleric was still available.

Altough i’ve been inactive for the last two months, and only just checked the latest updates, I have been playing gw2 for about 3 years now and basically played nothing else but STAFF ele for like 75% of that time (yeah, i looove the staff elementalist).

The following text is actually a comment of mine in another topic, where i tried helping a fellow staffie out, but i decided to open a new topic because i’d really want to discuss the build diversity for elementalists, propose an alternative for the cleric playstyle (and get feedback) and also maybe help some other staffies out and discuss how hard the weapon is to master.

if you want to see the original post on the original page (which you should check out), it’s here:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Non-HoT-Staff-Ele-for-PvP/first#post6313866

Now, without further ado:

I’ve read the changes, and it seemed they removed the cleric amulet. I’ll be honest, at first I was kinda in panic, because that’s kind of a bummer, and that change could overall make being an elementalist a lot harder for the following months, harder than it should be.

But then i realised, when running cleric, i barely used my water overload, and my actual healing skill, because of the amount of healing my staff skills could do for me. another thing i was able to do with the cleric amulet was holding off a 1v3 situation, and potentially winning 1v2’s. So I guess in that extent, the cleric amulet was a bit OP. BUT yet again, i specced to be hard to kill and i was and should be, the only reason i could still put out as mutch damage needed was because staff ele fields stack up on damage and are individually virtually longlasting, so as long as i could keep them inside, it was just a matter of time before they died. But non expert staffies couldn’t do this so the cleric was well in it’s place, and i think the ability to controle where you want your oponent should be rewarded by being able to kill them with cleric on.

I feel that the devs are narrowing the build diversity by forcing players to spec mostly for power or condition damage (they’ve got like 10 variations of power amulets 5 for condi but only maximum 2 for the rest -.-’)
so now i’ve been theorycrafting and designed two builds that should be cleric-like but will requiere more gameplay mechanics, they could potentially be even better than the cleric build, but i have yet to test (and variate) them:

Build 1:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFAWn0XCFOg9XCmOAcYilNAb4BEAugErgUwIwdv+XPsA-TJRDABA8AAmZ/BsLDQxFAAA
Build 2:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFAWn0XCFOg9XCmOAcYilNAb4BEAugErgUwIwdv+XPsA-TJRDABus/AAPAAtLDQxFAAA

explanation

build 1

This build’s a bit selfish in the manner that you don’t have much healing power and so you can’t really give decent heal support. But it’ll be incredibly hard for your opponent to get your health down. Also notice the sigil of life, when this gets to max stack, your healing power should be anough to keep yourself up.

also another thing to notice is that you use conjure flame axe, the reason you should choose this above flash-freeze is because it has an additional fire field and most importantly a leap and blast finisher, and a second underrated burning retreat. I urge you to experiment with these (and your other) finishers on your fields. Keep in mind that getting an aura is beneficial, so leaping and blasting your ice field is almost twice as good as flash-freeze. i’d prefer the conjure earth shield in more organised play tough, because you could really do some crazy coordinated “kitten” with your fields combined with this weapon.

For the elite, on second toughts, don’t use rebound, use the water elemental in glyph of elemental instead. it’s healing power isn’t scaled like yours. So just spam the secondary skill (=“crashing waves”, control your opponent yourself so your elemental doesn’t have to first chase him/her around before actually beginning the skill that heals for more than 6k)

use diamond skin for condi, stone heart for anything else.

build 2:

this build focuses on heavy team healing so you’ll want to be on every team fight, rebound is now more fitting and you could also use powerfull aura master trait. A maximum stacked sigil of life makes up for the lowered toughness, because your healing is consistent. one of all the glyphs (except of lesser elementals) could be also very usefull. you could also use flash freeze (or anything else, really) instead of flame axe.
I still have to test al these and see if they work, they’re the best tank builds i can come up with for now, (maybe i could also check with the arcane line and replace earth with it, looks promising).

But if all of these don’t work as well as i think it should, then the bunker elementalist is momentarily dead.

What do youguys think?

Sifu.9745:

MrJefferson.1704:

Hi, Sifu, to give you an idea: ….

That’s exactly what I’ve been looking for! Thank you so much
As you mentioned above, Staff is one of the hardest profession weapon combo in the game, but I’m addicted to it:P

Ok, i’ve read the changes, and it seemed they removed the cleric amulet. I’ll be honest, at first I was kinda in panic, because that’s kind of a bummer, and that change could overall make being an elementalist a lot harder for the following months, harder than it should be.

But then i realised, when running cleric, i barely used my water overload, and my actual healing skill, because of the amount of healing my staff skills could do for me. another thing i was able to do with the cleric amulet was holding off a 1v3 situation, and potentially winning 1v2’s. So I guess in that extent, the cleric amulet was a bit OP. BUT yet again, i specced to be hard to kill and i was and should be, the only reason i could still put out as mutch damage needed was because staff ele fields stack up on damage and are individually virtually longlasting, so as long as i could keep them inside, it was just a matter of time before they died. But non expert staffies couldn’t do this so the cleric was well in it’s place, and i think the ability to controle where you want your oponent should be rewarded by being able to kill them with cleric on.

I feel that the devs are narrowing the build diversity by forcing players to spec mostly for power or condition damage (they’ve got like 10 variations of power amulets 5 for condi but only maximum 2 for the rest -.-’)

so now i’ve been theorycrafting and designed two builds that should be cleric-like but will requiere more gameplay mechanics, they could potentially be even better than the cleric build, but i have yet to test (and variate) them:

Build 1:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFAWn0XCFOg9XCmOAcYilNAb4BEAugErgUwIwdv+XPsA-TJRDABA8AAmZ/BsLDQxFAAA

Build 2:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vFAQFAWn0XCFOg9XCmOAcYilNAb4BEAugErgUwIwdv+XPsA-TJRDABus/AAPAAtLDQxFAAA

explanation

build 1

This build’s a bit selfish in the manner that you don’t have much healing power and so you can’t really give decent heal support. But it’ll be incredibly hard for your opponent to get your health down. Also notice the sigil of life, when this gets to max stack, your healing power should be anough to keep yourself up.

also another thing to notice is that you use conjure flame axe, the reason you should choose this above flash-freeze is because it has an additional fire field and most importantly a leap and blast finisher, and a second underrated burning retreat. I urge you to experiment with these (and your other) finishers on your fields. Keep in mind that getting an aura is beneficial, so leaping and blasting your ice field is almost twice as good as flash-freeze. i’d prefer the conjure earth shield in more organised play tough, because you could really do some crazy coordinated kitten with your fields combined with this weapon.

For the elite, on second toughts, don’t use rebound, use the water elemental in glyph of elemental instead. it’s healing power isn’t scaled like yours. So just spam the secondary skill (=“crashing waves”, control your opponent yourself so your elemental doesn’t have to first chase him/her around before actually beginning the skill)

use diamond skin for condi, stone heart for anything else.

build 2:
this build focuses on heavy team healing so you’ll want to be on every team fight, rebound is now more fitting and you could also use powerfull aura master trait. A maximum stacked sigil of life makes up for the lowered toughness, because your healing is consistent. one of all the glyphs (except of lesser elementals) could be also very usefull. you could also use flash freeze (or anything else, really) instead of flame axe.

I still have to test al these and see if they work, they’re the best tank builds i can come up with for now, (maybe i could also check with the arcane line).
But if all of these don’t work as well as i think it should, then the bunker elementalist is momentarily dead.

vesica tempestas.1563:

^^ on top of last post, you have to realise spvp is a team game, and playing a spec that is poorly performing in relation to other specs means you are putting your team at a disadvantage as well. The key thing to remember is that ele staff is aoe based, and aoe doesn’t work when your target simply moves out of it and pressures you instead (especially if you have poor dmg mitigation)

The ele staff skills are, as a whole, deliberately designed by the devs for this exact phenomenon: Making sure your oponents don’t get out of your AoE’s! No matter how good your opponent is you’ll always be able to subsequently keep him/her in each and every one of your AoE’s. It’s hard as hell, but it’s made possible. In other words, the staff has a particular set of skills (reference pun intended) that could accompany an AoE making sure your target doesn’t “simply move out of it.”