Guild Wars 2

Why do people think that condition damage (and hence Carrion gear) is so bad for staff users?

As a staff user, your only real sources of major damage are lava font, flame burst, meteor shower, eruption, and shockwave. All of these do most of their damage as condition damage except for lava font and meteor shower, and the latter is something that’s only useful in special situations. While it’s true that D/D has many more ways to apply conditions, this is only because the staff has so few ways to do damage in general.

I think Carrion gear is pretty solid for staff users as you deal a pretty even mix of both direct damage and condition damage. This is doubly true if you use Evasive Arcana as your attacks in both Fire and Earth attunement do condition damage. The only way I can see you wanting precision instead of condition damage is if you’re a lousy player and you just sit in fire all day casting lava font and autoattacking.

Not to mention that even a “staff user” will occasionally want to swap to D/D or some other weapon set in special situations. If your gear is purely power/precision/toughness, you’re going to need to invest in and carry around a second set of gear to be able to use anything other than a staff properly. With Carrion gear, you’ve got something that works with any weapon combination and against any sort of opponent (as the large amount of vitality keeps you safe from both direct damage and conditions).

Am I missing something?

I love this build as a staff elementalist, but I’m a bit unsure what traits and gear to use with it for PvE (and I guess WvW).

My build is currently 30/10/0/0/30. The 30 into fire gets me Internal Fire (for more damage), Pyromancer’s Aclarity (which seems to allow my combos to line up better), and Pyromancer’s Puissance (which allows maintaining 20+ stacks of might even easier). The 10 into air gets me Zephyr’s Focus (which enables dodging more frequently, although I’m currently wondering if a Sigil of Energy would let me put 10 into water instead for Cleansing Wave.) . In arcane, I take Arcane Mastery (to allow more frequent use of Arcane Wave), Blasting Staff (for obvious reasons), and, of course, Evasive Arcana.

Utilities are currently Arcane Wave (as an additional combo finisher), and then Lightning Strike and Mist Form (as a sort of overkill survival strategy). Perhaps taking Arcane Shield instead of one of those two is smarter given that I have Arcane Mastery.

For gear though, I’m a bit unsure. My current thinking is that going straight Carrion for primary condition damage and secondary vitality and power is a good way to go. The rationale is that I already have +300 power from the 30 points into fire and lack condition damage as I have 0 points into earth. Condition damage seems to account for quite a lot of my damage output as I constantly cast Flame Blast and Churning Earth, plus I also cast these via dodging due to Evasive Arcana. (Maybe I actually cast Shockwave in earth as others have said above. It’s condition damage either way.)

As a final justification for Carrion gear, my thinking is that it’ll be useful if I do ever swap out the staff for S/D or D/D as I’ll be able to do good condition damage. I’ve completely given up crit though—I’m sitting at 8% as my only source is the 10 points into air—and I’m unsure if this is appropriate assuming the use of a staff. I also have nothing in terms of toughness, but maybe I don’t need it if every piece of gear + trinkets is giving me vitality.

Any thoughts would be much appreciated!

(I’ve decided to do something else entirely. Please ignore this post!)

To start off with, here’s the build:
http://gw2skills.net/editor/en/?fEEQFAWhEmKbzR5gjDAkHn4CLjCZUeEzM7A

(My description of the build begins below. Skip this part and just follow the link above if you’re not interested in my rationale.)

With 30 points into arcana, I can switch attunements constantly and play a very fast-paced, reactive style even while maintaining a ranged focus. I’ve got sufficient damage in fire and earth, plenty of control in air, and decent healing with a nice chill in water. It’s great! Blasting staff is a fantastic trait, as is elemental attunement. I also take arcane mastery to be able to more often use arcane wave as a combo finisher (and to therefore stack might).

30 points into water gives a much-needed vitality boost and great condition removal. The cantrip traits soothing disruption and cantrip mastery both benefiting lightning strike and mist form basically mean I have to screw up quite badly to die. (Yes, I know cantrip mastery is currently bugged for mist form.) Max water also has good synergy with arcana; the 25 water trait gives 2% damage per boon and I have +60% boon duration between my 30 points in arcana and my runes (water and monk). Finally, cleansing water is a good source of conditional removal and solid for group play.

The remaining 10 points go into earth. I take obsidian focus as I use ether renewal for my heal. Being able to have some additional toughness right when I need it is quite handy and the tremendous condition removal from ether renewal means I can easily avoid taking cleansing fire (which opens up room for arcane wave). Even this is probably still overkill considering the great conditional removal I have via water, but it’s handy have just in case.

Sure, this is not the most damage-intensive build ever. It’s not that bad though. Given the 60% reduction on attunement switching, you can make the most of every single cooldown ability. It’s a terrible build if you just sit in fire, but it’s not bad for soloing if you switch properly. It’s also wonderful with one or two other people along side you.

(End of build description.)

When it comes to gear, I’m quite torn. Flame burst, eruption, and shockwave are my only significant sources of condition damage, so I initially assumed I’d go with power and precision. The problem is that my direct damage isn’t terribly good either except in cases where my AoE really shines, so I then figured that power and condition damage would be a better bet.

At the same time, I wanted to get a bunch of healing power and toughness so that, in combination with my cantrips, I’m basically impossible to kill. I did the math though on going with full Cleric’s gear and it seems that healing power doesn’t actually buy me that much. The boost to rejuvenation is pretty large (86%) with Cleric’s armor, staff, and water/monk runes, but doesn’t seem to alter my direct healing abilities much at all; +12% if I did my math right.

I think I’ve narrowed down my choices to Cleric’s and Carrion. For trinkets, I think I want to go with Chrysocola either way as the condition damage is nice and I have no other source of vitality to speak of. Either way, I’m left with exactly zero precision above the base 916. Maybe Emerald or Beryl are better bets to get some precision, but I suspect it would be too little to be of much use.

Any thoughts on gear would be much appreciated. I’d also be happy to be ruthlessly insulted for suggesting such an obviously stupid and overly-conservative build if you’re willing to suggest something else that sticks with staff (which I want for various role play reasons and so on) and 30 in arcana (because it’s just too much fun).

Thanks for the help!