Guild Wars 2

Leo G.4501:

Fortus.6175:

Simple answer really;

1) GS have the coolests, most varied, and numerous skins, unfortunately. I like ele, but they cant wear it. Mesmers GS and D/D ele already proved that ANet doesnt care about weapon traditional use when it comes to range nor lore. I would play anything else but im in love with my ele and I would like to stick to it on rain or fire.

‘coolest’ is up to preference. Popular? Yes. But already people don’t much care for all of Elementalist’s obscuring effects, and all a GS would do is add annoying footprints and sparkle trails to it.

Personally, ‘cool’ to me is uniqueness and rarity, neither of which GS is…but that’s personal opinion.

2) We lack a reliable, selfish ranged damage weapon. Couple it with the fact that many people want a GS + ele + range = why everyone and their mothers want to have GS in their arsenal. Until they start making more cool staves and staves actually be able to hit anything but golems in the mist, I, and many more will keep askin for a ranged GS.

Then why a GS? Why not a bow or even a pistol or rifle? I honestly wouldn’t care either way, just new weapons would be super welcomed…but a melee weapon you shoot elements from super far away is the last thing I’d suggest.

I guess cool has different meaning for everybody, to me, cool (when it comes to weapons) is flashiness, effects, particles, after-effects, animations, all of which GS (without any room for doubts, judging by the sheer amount of nicely and meticously designed GSs ), right now GS have them the most, also, for some odd reason I have always found greaswords to be very appealing to me, as well as knight in shinning armor, something about my childhood that this image stuck to me, hardcore. I tried the guardian, and in fact it was suppose to be my “main” before the game was release, but as soon as I hit the ele, it clicked for me, where the guardian didnt.

As for the GS skills, just look at mesmer, or lets not get that far away, daggers on ele, they are merely ceremonial daggers, they are there to serve a magical purpose; to channel the skills through a weapon, not to hack away somebodys head. In a game plagged with magic, you would expect the elementalist (the most magical profession in the game) to be able to pull this one out of the blue (fiery sword, remember, the elite?)

SHM.7628:

Fortus.6175:

SHM.7628:

I read your entire post. I agree with what you said. except you are not casual. However, that only makes your points more viable.

I consider and hour a day 3-5 times a week casual. If you think you had it bad, those type of players can do little more than their dalies.

If you are not prepared to play 8-12 hours a day then you won’t really feel like your getting anywhere. I chose life over GW2.

My frustration comes from the fact that I cant make any profit from playing the game the way I want, which is going around the map, killing some stuffs but mostly just going around doing events that pop up or doing JPs. I feel lik I have to be on constant grind in order to do anything, I swear in the last 2 weeks I have made around 3 gold at most…..

I fully understand. I like to play the same way. It’s not fun or productive. I do make sure that I do my dailies so that when i want to I can give my alts exotic armor. Running the map is too costly and time consuming.

Leveling alts is a chore that i just don’t feel like doing, Nor do i have the time. Personal story stinks. (repetitive after a point.) Drops are lackluster. I remember in GW1 upgrading weapons, getting greens and golds to drop was fun. Here its all confusing and convoluted.

Perhaps its time to throw in the towel for you? I don’t say that to seem flippant. I jus understand how you feel. Feeling like your not making headway is a fun killer.

I know what you mean, but it isnt that bad to me, yet. I dont mind the profits that much as long as I get to do what I like, but it does get very frustrating seeing myself in the same place as 3 weeks before…. I want a legendary before they release the next expansion…….

Spiuk.8421:

I rather have one hand sword with a “battle mage” playstyle (meele and short range skills).

with our low stats ?! no thanks, it would mean we would have to go arcana/water,and probably the gamestyle woudnt be any different from D/D.

No, i want a weapon that can make air/fire a possible way of playing ele, I mean, right now there is no point on speccing on this if staff, which is our longest ranged weapon almost requieres you to be at melee to be able to take some advantage of the fields and blasts….

I want a viable ranged option for a change..

Quick Mouse.7635:

It’s not instant or a bug. Generally what happens is that there is one spawn near the bottom of the hill where there are two veterans left but the pact moves on. They aggro the next spawn while the majority of people are still fighting the two vets, causing them to lose most if not all their moral. This is where most zergs fail, and I always try to yell in /say or /map to ignore those two vets. Not a bug, just poor awareness from the zerg.

sounds to me like bad design or “broken” mechanic which needs to be fixed nonetheless….

Last time balthz was open on my server was one week ago, granted i dont log every day but out of the 2-4 hours i do i have yet to see it open, and I check every time i can…

There is barely any KT running at any given time, and those few who do go to that part of the map prefer to do the KT instead of balthy cuz of the high failure rate and how unproductive, lenghty it can be, so that at the last steps the event fails miserably….. I used to call out balth event and used to get mad when people ignored me or said; “forget it, it will fail anyways, i want my karma” , slowly but surely I became one of them after many failures (wasted time)

For staff to be a little less AoE-ish and a little more selfish and reliable in all scenarios?

I LOVE, absolutely love the elementalist profession, the whole concept behind it, and mostly I cant help but want to be able to play a element-bender wizard (Oppa Gandalf style) who is really, REALLY scary to face, but drops just as fast as he could potentially down you.

I understand that staff is supposed to be all about standing on the back of the zerg throwing some AoEs and afk’ing until the CDs are back on, but I would like to be able to also be able to hold my ground in all kind of scenarios, including 5v5 tPvP where for the most part you spend your time alone or in pairs.

Im willing to sacrifice (yes, at this point I will let go of my pride and let them eat some underserved nerfs) some AoE and support for a little more selfish gameplay involving being able to kill something besides standing golems on the mist.

Please Anet, just that one favor, even though you owe me nothing, but please dont let my epic vision of an emblematic weapon on a wizard/mage/sage/element bender die.

Pretty much 17/20 skills are AoE, air #3 is near impossible (impossible) to land on anything remotely moving and the root one is the only one that can save your rear in a bad situation, for some time. I feel like we have so much wasted potential, perhapns moving some of that mostly situational and hidden power towards more aggressive purposes will prevent staff from being pidgeonholed into support, I mean, I thought that we didnt want any trinity, and unfortunately we cant change our “role” mid fight.

Acension.9270:

This would just make Elementalist more OP

hahaha hahahaHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!! Thanks for the laugh :’)

Soeki.9643:

I don’t get it why people want a MELEE weapon to be a long range one.

Simple answer really;

1) GS have the coolests, most varied, and numerous skins, unfortunately. I like ele, but they cant wear it. Mesmers GS and D/D ele already proved that ANet doesnt care about weapon traditional use when it comes to range nor lore. I would play anything else but im in love with my ele and I would like to stick to it on rain or fire.

2) We lack a reliable, selfish ranged damage weapon. Couple it with the fact that many people want a GS + ele + range = why everyone and their mothers want to have GS in their arsenal. Until they start making more cool staves and staves actually be able to hit anything but golems in the mist, I, and many more will keep askin for a ranged GS.

SHM.7628:

I read your entire post. I agree with what you said. except you are not casual. However, that only makes your points more viable.

I consider and hour a day 3-5 times a week casual. If you think you had it bad, those type of players can do little more than their dalies.

If you are not prepared to play 8-12 hours a day then you won’t really feel like your getting anywhere. I chose life over GW2.

I knew legendary wasnt gonna be an easy thing, thats why I set it as my goal, maybe Im not so casual after all, and maybe if I focused all my attention into farming I would probably be a lot more closer, but I find that making gold is hard, specially since what I lie to do is very unproductive;

go around with my guildies helping them in whatever they need, doing JP, doing the occasional sPvP, going to WvW (usually I end up losing more money than I make, repairs can be expensive and I have a hard time getting any drops), dungeons get tiring after doing them more than once in the same day. Unfortunately I cant do all that, specially the later, because dungeons can be very time consuming, unless CoF p1.

My frustration comes from the fact that I cant make any profit from playing the game the way I want, which is going around the map, killing some stuffs but mostly just going around doing events that pop up or doing JPs. I feel lik I have to be on constant grind in order to do anything, I swear in the last 2 weeks I have made around 3 gold at most…..

Milennin.4825:

Mirta.5029:

and here you’re reversing the roles.
both Berserker and MF gear is gear that is very hard to use, because you’re sacrificing vitality and toughness. If a person manages to survive with it instead of sitting on the ground they are not a bad player.

I’m sure that letting the team carry you is considered skilful. You don’t want to know often I get in teams with Warriors or Thiefs that drop down 10 times faster than my Elementalist in a dungeon party. Or when you have that guy that proudly states how great MF is, and that they don’t need the extra stats because their class is so great at surviving, but then spend the rest of the time dead in a Lupicus encounter, while the rest of the team is working to get him up again. Yeah…

i feel an indirect directed at me…..

anyways, i have zerker gear, the MF comes from runes and sockets, in dungeons though, i switch to half pvt and half valkirie, lipucus still goes for me as his preferred target.

but what i dont understand is how the topic deviated from “we need to make exploring and doing fun stuff that isnt farming more rewarding towards a goal; legendaries” to strawman and gear for dungeons…..

derLoko.2185:

@OP: Maybe you should try to get ascended gear & fractals first?

well, im gearing my main (ele) with ascended, currently going for zerker since I like crits and nuking people from afar, I have been doing some fractals but for the most part and other than the daily lvl2, I dont do much

Wolfheart.1938:

I didn’t read your entire post so bear with me, I’ll read it later. Just wanted to point out that 3-5 hours a day isn’t casual by any means ( a truly casual player often has days where he doesn’t play at all ) and that dungeons aren’t for the superproelite crowd (those are SOLOING Lupicus ), but for the “medium-skilled, with a brain” player. I’m pretty sure you haven’t tried half of them, yet tag them as “only for dedicated people on TS”.

This is why I dont like doing Tl;DR, people ignore the post and go to it, which I blame technology, nowadays this generation cant sit down and read anything. I covered those points already, and yes, i ahve tried them all, and completed many of them, but this is not the point of the thread. The point is that in the lack of a endgame content, Legendaries is the only thing you really have to go for if you are a loner or have a small guild which cant do anything past tier 1 bounty. Granted, I dont play 5 hours everyday, i should probably correct that, it is more like 2-4, some days I dont play at all and only log in quickly for the daily in PvP.

Point is that, I like helping guildies and whatnot, going around the map, exploring, doing fun stuff, but the profits for that are minimal, each event give you no more than 200 karma, while orr gives you nearly 300 each plus a lot more gold, doing bosses is fun, dragons that is, I like that, but they come every now and then, in between you have to camp CoF for gold because there is no other way around it, Orr is too ugly and it gets boring after the 4th KT, the rewards for going to a pretty map is…..meh.

Ok, sorry guys, forgot to post suggestions on how to fix it:

Really easy, really:

The economy is expensive, not because attaining gold is all that hard, but beacuse materials and others are too scarce, therefore increasing the amount of gold would do nothing, the prices would remain the same (just increased in ratio), so a good fix is increasing a drop rate, but not going from 0.0001% to 0.0002%, im talking about MASSIVE drop rate, not only that, make it so when killing stuff in low lvl, you get about the same chance as killing one of high level, (not just a small chance)

Also, this might sound crazy, but what about putting t6 nodes into low and mid lvl places? Im not talking about putting them there and letting them be, or putting on, only ONE in the whole map, im talking about, you are walking around, with your low lvl guildies, and BAM, a orichalcum node, which wont appear there next time, once you use it, its gone, goes random into another place, or map. Also put a LEVEL on the stuff before you collect them, a low lvl will use a basic gathering tool to pick up that node and will get nothing, also, for the most part i cant tell which tress give what, or which plants give what (lvl wise) so be a little less ambigous about it, maybe?

Make it so that getting materials insint a tedious task or a 3rd party task (going to CoF, repeating it 3 times in order to buy some t6 mats you need)

Overall, increasing drop and success rates, make the little time people use worth it, make exploration fun again.

Part 2:

As I said, I dont like farming, though I dont mind if it is a rewarding and interactive way, but the game has prety much boiled down to; farm CoF p1-p2, check timers on dragons, run KT in between. I dont mind CoF, it is a beautiful and thankfully easy dungeon, but that applies to the first 10 or maybe 20 times, after that it gets dull and repetitive and obnoxious and just a task. I have tried other dungeons but for the same reward, i will not go through near-impossible bosses fights, constant wipings, lon, long LONG LONG runs, running through one-shooting mobs, gazillions, getting one shooted by Lupicus (yes, im looking at you Arah, I need 500 for the gift and about 3 times that for the set) all to fail running Arah for the 3rd time in about 1+ hours run each. I know if you know the tricks you can do it, so thats not really the issue, once I get it I know I will be able to do it, but the point is; farming gets stale. There is absolutely no reason to deviate from this [[Dungeon-Dragon-KT]] if you wanna make some profit. I dont mind the trains, but the dungeons are getting old, repetitive, and increasingly hard (AC?!, cant WP while i combat?!). Orr is ugly, cant spend more thn an hour there until wearing sick of the greyness and constant CCs (inb4 it used to be worse before)

Like I said before, there is absolutely no reason to go outside, open world exploration is over once you reach lvl 80, going back would only ensure you get less karma, no drops and a huge set back towards a goal. I got a coworker into the game, now we are exploring the map together, Im having a good time, but at the same time, I feel that Im wasting my time, not doing all those dragons which I HAVE to get, all the tokens which i need and all that gold which I have to spend on t6 mats since they barely drop, even with my 80% MF set which i wear 100% of the time. Since Christmas the farthest I have gotten is Gift of exploration, Gift of Jumping Qui….errggh Battle, 71 cloves and no more than 30 of each t6 mat mostly from the occasional Orr drop or the failed clove attemp. For expending 3-5 hours daily on a game, you would expect a little more, and I probably should have a little more, but that would imply that I would hav to dedicate those 3-5 hours EXPLICITY on those unfun tasks. Im nowhere near getting my legendary, I hav eno more than 80 gold net since Christmas, I need 100 for the icy runes and the precursor (500g anyone?)

So now you say; “bro, its optional”, but here is the thing, everything in this game is optional, too optional. Guild mision require massive amount of influence and players, we have about 20 active players in our guild, cant get past t2, completed it once out of 4 times, small guilds like ours can barely keep up with that. Dungeons are borderline impossible unless you are a hardcore player with TS and perfect knowledge of them. WvW is better now without culling, but inbetween the AoE caps and uneven server matches, the game boils down to who has the most players. sPvP is utterly unbalanced, many classes cant hold on their own, and 5v5 boils down to who has the best mesmer/thieves since for the most part you have to roam alone there.

This game is beautiful but the lack of achievable end game content for more casual gamers who want to explore and not farm 24/7 like promised by ArenaNet at the launch will cause more and more players to leave, or have long breaks like mine. Once again, maybe Im talking out of frustration and Im just burnout, but my sense of achievement in this game is close to none since I cant do what I want, which is go around helping my coworker, my guildies, doing doable misions, and still attaining some sort of good looking gear (Bifrost)

Tl;DR: Casual players resorting to spending the little time they can into farming and farming, not doing what they want like exploring or helping other because it is the only way to acquire a “goal”, ie Bifrost.. Im starting to get the feeling that this game is starting to become a hardcore Korean MMO where you need perfect coordination to be able to do most group content and where the only way to keep you into the game is having low drop rates and awful combining success rate, making you farm mindlessly doing unfun stuff instead of what you want so that you can have a chance to get something, that isnt really all that worth it. After months of playing, I feel like Im getting nowhere.

Part 1:
Hi there, before I start, let me say I consider myself a “casual gamer” leaning towards semi hardcore. I spend about 3-5 hours daily on the game, been playing since Beta, but took a long break in between, which I will explain.

I absolutely love this game, the details, the dialogs, the stories, the stories, the stories, the epic stories, how Im a superheroe, the stories. But Im having a few issues regarding how little rewarding I see the game outside personal story for a casual gamer like me.

Maybe Im just getting burnout, but this is the same thing that happened to me last time. I had been following the game for about 2 year before the release, prebought at the first chance, I was really exited about a new MMO that didnt emphasize on mindless farming and that actually rewarded open world exploration

Me, coming from certain W.. game, as well as quite the few other Korean FARM-A-LOT-BUT-NEVER-REACH-ANYWHERE mmos, I found this very appealing to me, I awaited the game anxiously. But as soon as I started, together with an old guild of friends, we reached a point that we got burnout. We found everything really pretty and all, but once you are over with leveling, going back would only hinder you, so we were left with only standing in LA. Granted, back then we didnt know about the different weapons, like legendaries, nor all the dungeons (only CoF and HoTW), found Shatterer by a lucky accident and quitted WvW all together from culling, (sPvP was unplayable due to all the thieves and mesmers, that until this day still plague the place, one shooting and frustrating everyone, but at least it is a bit better)

At that point we took a break (they quit) and I went to play more casual games like L.., where the fun was contained in about less than an hour. During Christmas I had my week off at work, and I was bored out of my mind, decided to give this a try. I came back and gave myself a task; make Bifrost. Here is where the issues start; while I understand it is supposed to be hard and optional, the lack of open world late game makes this game not have much to go for.

Maybe Im just burnout, but right now Im going through this….again. I started back in Beta, played for about one month after release, then hit the point of boredom, quitted till christmas. At that point I was just logging because the other game I was playing was off-line and it was a week off at work (Christmas and family wasnt around at the time). Proposed myself a goal, Bifrost. I ahve been playing 2-4 hours daily , doing objectives and farming all day yet Im nowhere near getting mine, have 71 cloves, one set of gear, gift of exploration and battle, and no more than 20 of each t6 mat……at this current date it would take me till next christmas to get all gifts, WITHOUT THE PRECURSOR which I see no sane way of getting it.

The game has pretty much boiled down to me camping dragons and doing continuos repetitions of CoF for tokens to buy exotic staves (which takes me about 4-5 days to buy one) and farm gold to buy all other stuff which i know I cant get, Like I said, Im starting to get burnout, and Im afraid I might have to quit this game again until the next time the cosmos aligns and the games Im playing are offline and I get another week off.

google.3709:

ummm here is another one! Rifles.. lol

there isn’t any rifles with “vision of the mist”
there isn’t Super Rifle
80% of the skins are unimpressive :]

neither do we have a “vision of the mist” version of staves, yet we have focus, scepter and GS…..

LHound.8964:

Oranisagu.3706:

I’d actually rather they made other weapons more interesting skillwise.. with nearly every class I feel pushed into using a greatsword because it’s one of the best weapons available.

mesmer: staff is nice, but it’s auto attack is a projectile which can be reflected, storm is way better but all in all gs is always a solid choice
warri: 100b is just too strong to ignore, #5 a great traveling skill, #3 an evade with good damage
ranger: only meelee weapon apart from sword, and sword just doesn’t work imho (way to slow activation time for skills which really should be fluid). block, stun, travel skill, relly nice overall.
guardian: question of preference, hammer is quite good as well, but feels a lot less mobile

so yeah, gs has way too many skins compared to other weapons, but it’s also a universally good weapon for every class who can wield it (I don’t say the only choice, but it’s always a good choice).

Although i can understand your point, it is not related to the purpose of the thread. This is about discussing the lack of good skins on staves when comparing to other kind of weapons.

I currently have a Necromancer and a Mesmer as my preferred playing characters. In both i use staff as the primary weapon and i got confronted with the problem of choosing a staff. As if it wasn’t already bad that my Necromancer (Harbinger of death kinda look) have to stick with a legendary that springs a rainbow trail from the top, i have to stick with staves skins that are incredibly dull.

There are tridents and spears that resembles staves that could indeed be used as staff skins.

So in the end i have to agree.
Staves needs some love from the incredible art team!

/Cheers

dull, yes, thats the word

Anyone that have been playing this game long enough to reach the point where they start collecting looks will know that out of all the weapons, there is an unfair amount of good looking greatswords compared to other weapons, to the point that they even have 2 legendaries (they might not count as one each but still makes them two unique and awesome looking legendaries)

Yet in comparison we only have a few cool staves, as for other weapons I dont know (care), yes, there are some cool staves but they are too few, and even the best of them cannot compare to the ordinary GS skins:

http://dulfy.net/2012/11/07/gw2-greatsword-skin-gallery/

What Im going for; more cool designs, but mostly this: particles. I love glowing stuff, but I dont like how for most stuff when you do get some glowing going, its at the top, tip, very small, barely noticeable. I want full glowing staves, or mostly at least. Look at the molten sword, or the guardian sword, when you swing them around they leave cool particles, one is fire the other one is sci-fi stuff!!! I want more of this, I want to see more particles, after effects, things noticeable. The other one is; details, the amount of details in a GS is astounishing, they have intricated patterns, cool desings….meanwhile, on staves we have a stick, just a plain, old crooked stick.

The reason everyone wants their classes to wear GS is because right now they have the most cool options to go to, which is also Im fighting to have GS on elementalists, they look to good to let them pass. Please give me a chance to say “woah, look at that epic staff, and that one, and that one too, AND THAT OTHER ONE TOO, and the next one too!!” not just “Oh hey, bifrost or nothing…”

Wreck.2634:

I want a greatsword simply because it is the most aesthetically pleasing weapon in the game. The skins made from greatsword are simply fantastic. I have re-rolled a warrior because of them!

pretty much this, they even have 2 legendaries (even though none count, unless eternity)

most of the cool weapon animations and particles come from GS, thats why I want it, only reason im not rolling a mesmer is because im absolutely in love with my ele, been since beta

ThiBash.5634:

Fortus.6175:

ThiBash.5634:

a) We have a greatsword.
b) You could always roll a mesmer.

a) we dont, we have an elite
b) or not.

a) That summons a greatsword. Point is, if you want a greatsword, you can play it. If you’re just interested in a different skillset, then it shouldn’t matter what weapon’s used for it…it could be a Frying Pan.
b) Your choice, but maybe you should also ask for Turrets, Stealth, Heavy Armor and a Mini Quaggan. My point was: don’t turn the Elementalist into a Mesmer just because you’d rather have Elementalist looks with Mesmer functionality.

a) here is the difference: you would be able to use it all the time, would have differnet skills, could use different GS skins, would be cool

b) Stop assuming stuff, it is like saying: “you want a candy? whats next, destroying the world, launching nuclear bombs, finding nemo?!” Totally unrelated stuff which are not tied to a class. Just in case you dont know, eles already have stealth, but thats not the point. Point is, apples to apples, I want a GS with elementalist gameplay. Guardians, warriors and mesmers share GS and yet you dont see anyone going all hiatus and asking to limit it to one class only, each one have their own gameplay tied to their class. A GS with elemental skills is all I ask, and before you go on, stop that argument because it will knda make you look a little ignorant , friendly advise.

ThiBash.5634:

Fortus.6175:

Please, give us greatsword, a long-range(1200-1500) , low control but strong single target CC, high single target with small collateral AoE damage!

a) We have a greatsword.
b) You could always roll a mesmer.

a) we dont, we have an elite
b) or not.

ThiBash.5634:

Fortus.6175:

The damage is ok, it is just that once you get out of fire you have none.

That’s also an ‘awulf’ argument. Ice Spike, Blinding Surge, Eruption, Shockwave and Chain Lightning deal plenty of damage.

key word: reliable, unless their movement keys dont work, neither will shockwave, eruption, ice spike hit any enemy, as for blinding surge it can hit, yes, but more often that not people will dodge it seen they can see it coming for 2 seconds in whcih you are doing NO damage, and chain lighting doesnt hit that hard…..it is an auto attack with average damage and has a 1 second casting, and it wont be hitting twice unless is a hunter, cuz if it is a mesmer it will hit all clones and only the original once, too, as for everyone else, it wont be hitting anyone a second time neither in a teamfight nor a solo match.

once again, RELIABLE

Dog.1472:

I am tired of the gs. I would rather have a bow and be something like an arcane archer.

I dont really like the idea but as long as we get GS I will support your idea, but if a decision comes down to it, then I will abogate for GS, I mean, I have never seen a mage wielding a bow, but I sure remember Gandalf using a sword!

Vanillea.5764:

You gain DPS because you will stay alive longer to do your damage instead of dying. Given if your are in an easy dungeon, anything works and you can maximize dmg all you want. In a more difficult scenario, especially wvw or spvp, you die before you do any dmg if you don’t utilize atunement swap.

A very simple example, you say switching out of fight you will lose a dps battle. However, if I am another staff ele who is constantly moving and put up my magnetic aura, what would you do to me if you stay in Fire attunement? Lava font won’t hit. Meteor takes forever to channel and you might die before finish channeling. Auto attack and get reflected…? Of course it is an ideal situation if you can just stand and auto atk in fire but sometimes it is not that easy.

lol, thats an awulf argument, you are saying something that applies to everyone; “you cant do damage if you are dead”, what the op is asking is how to maxime damage to the point of actually killing something, even if it means danger to self.

Personally i believe the staff does need some improvements, my guess is to distribute the damage from fire a little to other elements and make it actually land on something other than the golems. The damage is ok, it is just that once you get out of fire you have none, and once the enemy discovers the have a dodge buttom and a strafe keys they wont be dying any time soon, or ever.

innocent ouarior.1954:

Scepter does high damage.

vs golems yeah, I mean, poor bastarrds cant move

Im talking about a two handed weapon that does RELIABLE damage at range (sort of like a mage wizard class is supposed or at least is preferred to do) without having to say “oh well, since I have so much CC and AoE I guess its ok to give up killing potential”

Leave staff for support ranged, and GS for damage ranged.

Please, give us greatsword, a long-range(1200-1500) , low control but strong single target CC, high single target with small collateral AoE damage!

Why? Because love the GS, and I want a weapon that emphasizes long range DPS, also since I know we are never going to get a buff for damage staff. As for the ultimate, change it or something, it is used mostly in PvE for fun and in sPvP it mostly cripple yourself. We dont really have any elite that makes you go from meh to WOAH, so might as well not use the elite excuse to not do the GS skills

Zenith.7301:

staff wvw

here we go again…………………

Lert.6287:

Just to make it clear.
OP complains about staff while using only one attunement – fire. Mostly spamming #1 skill. Yet, he is surprised how easy he gets himself killed and that he can’t kill anyone neither provide any group support.
Ah, yeah, probably he is on zerker set (I suppose so from one of his posts).

Im sorry, i read that and reread yet I cant find him saying that anywhere. Anyways, right now fire is the hardest hitting tree, getting out of it gimps you for about 15/12/9 seconds if you are no triated for it, and right now those traits kinda suck. Everyone know eles have to switch elements, those who dont are amateurs indeed, but it sure would be nice to have some of the fire damage evenly distributed among other elements, getting out of fire ensures you wont be doing much anything other than running/CC/surviving until fire is up again.

Fixes? Decrease attunement recharge (wont happen, it is the weakness of our class, one of manys) so, another good one; traiting into one skill tree reduces the rechage time of that particular element. There, I just fixed part of the isue of being forced into arcana, next step is making blasting staff (arcana VIII) the baseline AoE diameter.

covenn.7165:

What I don’t understand is why you keep making posts complaining about the same thing over and over again, then get angry and mad anytime someone has a different opinion that you. If you make a post on a forum, you have to accept varying opinions. What you are doing now is basically just spam.

My biggest suggestion to you, and one I have made several times already is this: Instead of trying to make the staff work the way you want it to and comparing it to other game, learn to use it the way it is as designed in this game. The entire elementalist class itself is designed around switching between damage, support, and cc so you never get stuck doing a single thing. The staff, as a weapon choice, is no different.

To be quite honest with you, it seems like you rolled a class without researching it first and are unhappy with how it plays. Me? I love the flexibility and the ability to adapt easily to any and all situations. Yes I (gasp) use D/D solo or in havoc ….but I also use staff just as much, if not more because it is the more effective weapon in big fights by far.

covenn, the only ones I eer see agaisnt the staff being a viable weapon are you and lavadiel, everyone else is aware that staff is in a bad spot, saying otherwise is a lie, i mean, when was the last time you saw someone with staff in 5v5 tPvP and you said “better be careful here”, even then, tell me how many times do you eve see staff players on high lvl sPvP? The only time you ever see a staff user is either WvW sieges or someone trying out staff and failing miserably.

It is a fact, D/D is the prevalent weapon, and not neccesarily by choice. For a caster class who is supposed to “burst foes before they even reach you, with the backflip that they have the lowest stats in the game” we sure lack the offensive skills, which once again, forces us into water/arcana, which….guess again, forces you to eithe rply D/D (because benefices the most out of it) or support staff because you dont have a choice.

Staff is not ok, the day i see people playing staff and D/D equally and people fear me as much as they fear me on D/D it is the day staff will be ok. Staff damage is ok, whats wrong is how unreliabl it is, it literary requieres you to have the enemy AFK in order to land something, a quick fix is increasing projectile’s speed, reduce casting times and delays on skills, instant AOE damage, remove the self-root on water#5 and fire #5 and increase hitting box for air #3. At leas 70% of those things have to happen, otherwise that weapon will remain useless outside WVW raids.

Phantaram.1265:

Hey ele community I almost exclusively play pvp and play a lot of tournaments in the mists and feel staff ele is not strong enough. Here are my suggestions!

Overall this is an attempt to make staff viable in spvp without improving its pve or WvWvW quality too much.

Make all #1 auto attack projectile speeds a bit faster.

1 Fire – Lava Font – Make it hit right when it hits the ground like back in the beta weekends, not many people probably remember this ^.^

4 Fire – Burning Retreat – Add a damage portion to the beginning of it like a reverse burning speed but less damage.

1 Water – Water Blast – Add some more damage to it nothing major. Maybe make the healing aoe around the hit target a bit bigger.

5 Water – Healing Rain – Castable while moving (maybe, maybe not)

2 Air – Lightning Surge – Lower the cast time to 1 second, possibly less

3 Air – Gust – Add some nice damage to it that also has a very small aoe around it exactly like ride the lightning. Maybe lower the cooldown a bit.

4 Earth – Unsteady Ground – Add some more power damage to it so it can be used well against downed targets.

Remove the trait in arcana that makes staff skills larger, it should be baseline for staff. ( I think a lot of traits that are specifically needed to make a certain weapon/kit be viable should be removed but that’s another topic.) The 20 point major is very powerful for ele and being forced to take this trait weakens the ele a lot in Spvp. I imagine a new staff trait taking its place to match the scepter and dagger improvement traits in the same tier but I’m not sure what that could be. Brain storm away!

If this makes staff too powerful in pve or WvWvW then making changes only in spvp to the staff may be the only way to make it viable there.

I agree with most of this and I would even dare to to say that it would be great if we had a small base stats increase and/or making autoattacks more rewarding by making them faster, hard hitting besides fire and increase their projectile speed as well as decreasing casting times (1 second casting, seriosuly? and afterthat it takes an eon to connect…..if the enemy isnt smart enough to just roll it…)

emikochan.8504:

I’m not seeing a lack of versatility when I play spvp but whatever, I agree the autoattacks could do with being a bit more impactful, the devs said they wanted some more low skill options for eles as they only really become useful when you’ve mastered the stance-dance – and imo the best way to do that is via some traits or buff that make the autoattacks stronger.

Baseline 10s switch, Would be nice.

Lightning AA, haha yes it is so slow, it should instantly hit all 3 targets, and if it hits the same target twice should get the graphic of a lightning strike. (a trait for multihit spells to gain a lightning bolt would be awesome)

Water AA should really use the beam channel like scepter air, would work with the toughness on channel trait since only meteor storm works with it now.

Agree on earth. Magic projectiles in gw2 really need to be faster, and non magic ones, make them faster too, people should just dodge on the animation, not seeing things slowly travelling 1200.

Just more trait synergy, to get that feeling of making a really synergistic build back from gw1 :p
I think an issue here is due to glyph of elemental power they have to balance the spells around the possibility of applying burn/weakness/chill/cripple.

I think if goep was changed/removed(or kept the same, it might not even be op) and those conditions added liberally to the spells in all attunements we’d end up in a nice place.

I do agree staff is good damage/CC wise, the proble is how unreliable it is, too unreliable, even with skills, because the moment someone with enough knowledge of knowing what the red circles mean, will kill you or give you a run for your money, where you will have to either:

a) run away in shame
b)stay and die
c) be a bunker, annoying, get ignored by everyone, be a drag in a tPvP where your team members will not call you again cuz they would want someone that Actually contributes to the game, not fill a much-needed spot.

eldain stenlund.4306:

lava font have delay missing target. = zero dmg.

fireball longer to cast but its auto aiming on moving targets to hit = some dmg.

fireball wins :P

A fix to lava font just popped in my head.
Why dont they have it this way:

you cast lava font on person. Dmg at cast.
person stands still in lava font. no dmg.
person moves. it ticks dmg every step.

yah, it is only fair they at least have to burn a dodge i mean….cmon, you can literary walk out of it and back inside before it does the first tick…

right now DPS is kinda of bad, not damage wise, because i would dare to say we do one of the highest, craziest AoE damage in the game (next to mesmers and thieves) but the big problem with eles is

very unreliables way to deliver the damage, pretty much dependant on them being AFK or perma CCed

and

Unlike other professions like emsmers and thieves, once you are in the heat, you better kill them before the use #1 skill 3 times… because you might not get to the see the end of that autoattack combo

Swiftwynd.1685:

Fortus.6175:

Swiftwynd.1685:

Fortus.6175:

also, how the heck do you get 6k-7k with lighting?! I can never get past 1.5-2k with full zerker set(exotic) and all accesorys zerker (ascended and exotic) and 5 stacks of mights and a couple of vulnerability!

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/81706-ouch-my-everything-the-80-potential-amplified-damage-build-with-sustain-support-and-control/

Its a build focused on damage amplification.

Damage Increase effects are multiplicative, so they become stronger the more you mix together.

You mix Piercing Shards trait (20% while in Water Attunement, effects Conjured Weapons too!) Vital Strikes (10%) Ember’s Might (5%) Burning Rage (5%), Bolt to the Heart (20%) and Sup. Sigil of Force (5%) and Sup. Scholar Runes (10%) and Bountiful Power (2% per boon).

All of these combined with mostly berserker gear (i use cavalier’s for my accessories and the all-stats ascended amulet, with Ruby jewles slotted into the cavalier’s) results in some vicious damage.

For full damage, you need to be above 90% health, with vulnerability and burning on the foe from your allies, and you get 25 might from external sources. Never had a 25 vulnerability + 25 might spike damage set up yet but it would be vicious. Once foes go below 33% it increases even further thanks to bolt to the heart

Im well aware of all that and as matter of fact I do use all that, coupled with ascended gear and max stats armor/weapons, yet I have NEVER reached 6-7k of damage with lighting #1 so im calling shenanigans on it until proven otherwise. But of course, 25 might stacks and 25 vuln stacks it will hit ahrd, but i can guarantee you that even then it would not be optimal, because with that much damage added any profession would be almost insta destroying anything in its path…

Anyways, Staff needs help, no going around it, either fix it or give us an statement saying as to why not, so many cant be wrong, when staff is only good for WvW raids then you know you have done wrong somewhere….. and lack of suggestions isnt, because this forum is FULL of them (a couple of my own too)

25 Might Stacks is VERY common and painfully easy to maintain in coordinated groups and most PUG Arah / Fractal groups. 2 guardians, keeping up fire fields with your constant Blasts, or other various might-stacking options make this a VERY reasonable possibility.

I’ve never had the idea “25 might + 25 vulnerability” situation yet, but when that happens I’ll post the numbers.

But yea, 6 to 7k first hits and 12 to 13k third hits ARE a common thing for me in a decent Arah group!

EDIT:

OH I GET IT :O Did you think I meant lightning on the staff, not the lightning hammer?

Because those are Conjure Lightning’s autoattack damage, not staffs (which blows sadly even for a ranged weapon).

oh yah then sorry, but yeah, the hammer hurts, but once again, as a squishy, if you go into the front line melee, you will blow, and Im saying this because by having 25 might and 25 vuln stacks that means there is more than 5 people there, yu will blow faster than ou can say KABO-

emikochan.8504:

Water jet needs to be a beam, would be awesome healing and damaging in a line. Also comparing null field to our on attunement aoe cleanse and heal trait, I’ll take the switch heal thanks :p

The single attunement traits need to go away, everyone single one of them should have an effect for each attunement…

Many feel forced into arcane / water to fill our deficiencies, maybe some of that stuff needs to be baseline…

Still staff in a group if people build to take advantage of combo fields, it’s very good.

I agree that conjures should probably be our weapon swap. But maybe balance them by replacing that attunement. (or just giving us the full 20 skills with each lol)

some good suggestions, i do like the idea of water been a beam bean, lol, I have yet to see one, but maybe if we can cast it on an ally ? LOL, i know its OP and I actually mean it as a joke, but I can only imagine it as a medic healing a heavy!! I would totall itemize for this and tag the commander with it, heck, even have a full guild of water eles doing that to the commander, INVINCIBLE!)

Taldek.6105:

I have used a staff on my ele for at least 90% of the 700ish hours I have played on my ele. I have never really experienced any issues with it aside from the carpal tunnel it has caused. Seriously, the staff ele has to be the hardest class to play effectively but it can be done. I speak from personal experience I have 5 level 80 characters and ele is my main. There is nothing wrong with staff except the possible disparity in the level of difficulty it takes to master and the level of effort it takes to play it effectively compared to other classes. As for ele survivability, cantrips and associated traits are your friends.

“associated traits” which are water, right? Also you need at least 20 arcana for blasting (VIII) , there you go, you have proved, once again, the issue with the profession:

once again you HAVE to go at least 0/0/0/20-30/20-30 in order to be effective, meaning that now you need defense to back it up and cant get any relavant points into fire/air because you NEED the water/arcana. Here is the issue, D/D can get away with it, no, as a matter of fact, D/D benefices the most and gets more out of it than going air/fire, which is why D/D users dont complain about it, but for staff, that…..just….doesnt work.

innocent ouarior.1954:

Staff in WvW is the only weapon to use (expect focus vs Siege weapons) since its the only one that has 2 attacks that ignores target limit. Its a bit weak to compare to Mesmer/Necro/Guadian but still.

When it comes to high Fractals your job is pretty much to supply water field when your group cant find a ranger. D/D dies, Scepter is occasionally fine (Shaman shield).

In sPvP you have good option with Blind Builds with S/D or S/F and Focus + Cantrip builds are tough point holders.

Where D/D shines its for 1v4 (2 are low level, 1 is afk and the last one is trying Bob’s character on a laptop with the Airport’s free wifi) heroes, ninja-survival kiting or other “gamer-ego-trip-to-put-on-a-vid-with-neometal-junk” material.

If they remove AoE target limit all weapons suddenly become fine, actually many professions too, and it punishes huge zergs and the “lets pack up together” on-way brainless strategy.

As for staff in PvE (and anywhere else) at least hastening water #1 travel time (channeling?) and Eruption’s blast (so you can actually cast a field BEFORE Eruption, like reactive playing, you know, not just “hey lets throw a healing blast on this guy in case he loses hitpoints and doesn’t have his heal up and also doesn’t die before and doesn’t walk 3 steps away!”)

No skill ignores the cap, the reason why it might seem like it does, is because, for example, Meteor Shower, each meteor affects a max of 5 people per second, so as long as they fall on different intervals in that second, there shouldnt be any issues, if 2 fall at the same time, then 5 targets in between both are picked at random, 5 hits divided, tested it plenty of times, threw it on a 200+ zerg and saw the same numbers that throwing it on a 50+ zerg.
The freezing ground is the same (water #4), it might appear like it affects everyone or a lot of people, but in reality all it does, is apply the freeze status randomly to 5 targets in a second inside the field, meaning that each second the RNG is run and randomly assigned to each victim, but the freeze lasts long that a second so over the duration can potentially affect a different target everytime, same goes for air #5, once the stun wears off off someone then it gets randomly appied to someone else…

Celtus.8456:

Staff isn’t that bad, stop being so dramatic. Some of the abilities could use adjustments (making gust more user friendly would be nice), but it’s still more viable than a lot of the weapons in the game.

but unlike most other weapons in the game, we lack the options to say “oh welps, I guess i will use this other weapon whn the one im using now doesnt work in this situation” , we are already pidgeon-hole into one already before the fight even starts!!

some minor fixes to staff and it becomes worth it, I mean, i want to wield a staff and feel powerful, right now only D/D achieves this. Though they have different themes, this does not justify its inability to peel off and reliably pumping damage. Bring staff to the dagger’s level, then we might have some eles wielding some weapons other than the already-tiring D/D

Blueday.6953:

You’ve made a lot of posts that don’t say anything constructive. Maybe they would check this subforum more often if you stopped.

oh hey look, a personal attack out of the blue ! Oh, and btw, thanks for the bump ,I appreaciate it, and Im quoting your comment in case you later on decide to erase it, , and thanks for recognizing my efforts for making staff a viable weapon outside WvW sieges, even negative comments that contribute nothing to the discussion at hand like yours help have a good day

emikochan.8504:

Mid fight is already too late, you need more awareness.

The ranged wizard is called the mesmer.

mesmer is a master of confusion, a duelist, which is why their mechanics are aimed at mostly single target with some collateral damage (clones only attack the person you target, if you switch targets then you have to start again)

As for the weapons

Lets say you are in tPvP, 5v5, I remember a statement from Anet that they wanted to make all weapons viable, better in some scenarious but overall you would be able to play your style and make it work for the most part with traits. I think the real problem are traits, but lets face it, they might take a lot of work (work which will very likely include Anet reworking them completely) so it wont see much changes, therefore we have to change the weapons to fit the “style”. Are you implying Im forced to play D/D in sPvP and tPvP all the time? Because there most of the time it is a 2v2 or 1v1, with the occasional 3v3, (unless your team is bad and all go together, in which case nothing can save you) and staff wont cut it, in fact D/D is better candidate for teams 4 or smaller, but not only that, you could argue that staff is good at WvW, but there is this video of 2 D/D eles soloing 10+ people, and killing a few of them, and then running away, try to do the same with more than 2 people with staff (and pray one of them isnt a thief) and you will see…..
So then you are only left with sieging the walls, which happens to be the only thing dagger is not good at, but thats not a biggie, after all, only a few professions that can do that, is that the only redeemable thing about staff then? wall sieging? Is that all we are left with? Is the the viability you would expect? Are you truly satisfied with that, are you?!

But isnt the whole purpose of having 4 attunements making it so that it is almost equivalent of having 2 weapons swaps, 4 different gameplays, and versatility?

Now, i know that for some cases this does not apply, like say: you wont pick a D/D to storm a castles wall, or a staff to have a brawl fight with a warrior, but, each weapon has the tools to deal with each situation, except the staff. Sure you dont have to siege a wall with D/D but apart from that, I cant possibly imagine a scenario where D/D isnt better than staff (and high lvl fractals is doable with D/D, trust me, but poinbt besides, NOBODY should really melee in high lvl fractals except maybe guarians and sturdy warriors so that point is null).

Yet, staff lacks the tool to stay ranged (the opposite is dagger with tools to create gap and close it at convenience) AND lacks the option of damage, which pidgeon-hole us into support , not by choice, but because its the only path left.

If I hear another “just switch to D/D” counter argument I swear I will pour a glass of hot chocolate milk on the drain and punch a kitten (not, that wasnt a filter), that argument ONLY applies to people that can switch weapons mid fight. Get real, staff needs help, period. Where is the ranged elemental wizard, commander of the elements, weak as a spaghetti but can kill you as fast as you could kill him?!

covenn.7165:

Fortus.6175:

If someone were to prove me wrong I would correct myself, if someone were to show me a video of a staff ele fighting an equally geared and skilled viable non-staff ele profession and winning 3/5 times then I will change my ways, but until the day I dont see people stopping playing D/D mostly because its the “effective” one and when I ask them; “out of D/D and staff, which one would you prefer to have?” and most they answer “D/D by choice” not because staff didnt work out, then I will stop.

Why use the wrong tool for the job though? You idea of what a staff is obviously does not match up with what the game designers envisioned. They designed staff to be effective against large groups of enemies and likewise designed daggers to excel in small fights.

Look at it this way: You don’t use a screwdriver to hammer in a nail. Can you make it work somewhat? Sure, but it most definitely is not the best tool for the job.

though your analogy makes sense when put that way, the reality is this; you are in the middle of nowhere, in a road with no people around, your car breaks, in the accident the tools kit falls off a cliff and you dont have choice but to use the the back of the hammer to unscrew something, it is not the right tool indeed, but you have to do since thats all left to be able to survive out there.

Now, in case you didnt get the analogy, i will break it down a bit more; the stuff falling off cliff represents combat, once you have the staff, you cant do anything but deal with it, you werent prepare for it because thats the whole thing about accidents, they just happens. You cant drive wih one hand with a screw driver and the other one a hammer, because who steers the car? Now, the perfect solution would be to have a multipurpose tool, but now you see, in this case since we are an elementalist, we can only use the hammer, while other classes can freely switch between the hammer and the other screw driver they conveniently have on their pocket (weapon switch). As you can see, i can also use analogies and flip the ones you have on your own.

Your mentality is ; “switch weapons” but, here is the part you dont know: We already do. But do I have to stop playing the weapon? Why do I have to run a mile away from the fight and stay there long enough to get out of combat and then open my charcter UI and blind myself for a good couple fo seconds and start looking for a dagger, exposing myself to not being able to equip them both, being vulnerable to attcks and missing my party who kept running ahead and into the fight. Do you catch my drift? There is absolutely no reason as to why we have to go through all this. The whole purpose of having 4 attunements is that an ele would have no need to go through all this; the equivalent of having 2 weapons swaps and more! Right now it does not work like that, and I believe thats how it was intended to be. So stop justifying it, work on improving it, not conforming.

emikochan.8504:

They do read forums, but they said if they are on forums then they aren’t working, so would rather be fixing stuff than forum whoring.

well, think about that statement then, wouldnt that imply that when they DO work, they dont take into considerations the forums? That would mean that all suggestions and ideas and frustrations and concerns go into deaf ears.

They dont want the burden of having to explain their decisions and then having to back them up, and then having to post equally on all forums, but thats not whats being asked here, all we are asking here is: a prove that moderators are not the only ones checking forums, a simple “Hi” would suffice.

Lavadiel.6231:

>Have you considered that there are plenty of players baseline
>skills and that maybe staff is also to blame?

yes I have

>Have you considered people playing something other than D/D?

yes, I play mostly with s/d now (hi end fractals)
I also play thief, warrior, messmer and played ranger.

>Have you considered that skill ceiling does not justify weapon’s weaknesses?

I have

>Too many considerations to take,

no

>When a large playerbase agrees with something
> then its most likely that someting is wrong,

no, totally wrong assumption
because http://youtu.be/z9pD_UK6vGU

“totally wrong”

Its called democracy, this game might not be one since we have no power over Anet, but that does not change the fact that there is a very high chance (really high in this case) that we are right. I only see you and a couple more defending staff as it is now, for the rest of us we keep bringing empirical prove that the staff is falling behind, backed up by personal experience. If the only argument you have is “l2p” and “no because no” then you have already lost the fight and right now you are being proudful.

If someone were to prove me wrong I would correct myself, if someone were to show me a video of a staff ele fighting an equally geared and skilled viable non-staff ele profession and winning 3/5 times then I will change my ways, but until the day I dont see people stopping playing D/D mostly because its the “effective” one and when I ask them; “out of D/D and staff, which one would you prefer to have?” and most they answer “D/D by choice” not because staff didnt work out, then I will stop.

Im not saying there arent enough D/D that picked D/D by choice (you definitely being one of them and keep making us know), but vast mayority of us started out with staff, because its what we like, but then we realized that there is no point going staff in anything but WvW raids when D/D does it better, unfortunately. Once again, dont get me wrong, I OVE the D/D gameplay, its refreshing new to MMOs, something that is scary, I just want staff to be the same, not just the underdog underpowered target-me-first weapon.

-Fortus

Im guessing that also if this doesnt get bumped, if the devs do decide to come, they might not see it, so i will put myself to the task of keeping it bumped (bumps from other people might be appreciated too), also Im going to keep track of how long it takes to respond, hopefully we get an insight on how class balancing goes on Anet

Thread was created on April (4) / 8/ 2013

Also, before an staff argument starts, let me say this: I keep hearing the same old argument; “dont play it”, “l2p” , “you suck” but I dont see any real good counter argument as to way we cant have a ranged DPS staff build. Yes you can argue that we have a lot of CC and AoE which is great in groups, but thing is, other professions have the same (if not more) CC and AoE and yet they can fulfill teamfights and solo fights purposes. Im looking at necros, mesmers, guardians, even a warrior can switch freely back and forth between these two. Now, you notice a pattern, all the mentioned classes share something in common; they can switch weapons and have different weapons with different purposes, some weapons even fulfilling both roles(!!!!!) therefore you can conclude (and if you dont arrive to the same conclusion then you are being stubborn) that they have versatility.

We are “supposedly” the kings of versatility, yet, when we go from a massive zerg to a branched 3v3 or 4v4 we get our smokey b|_|tts completely burnt because we lack the tools to adapt to those situations, therefore we lack versatility. Repeat with me;

We are supposed to the kings of versatility yet we lack it

Unlike other professions we cant decide to wear D/D mid fights from staff, or S/D. Therefore all points implying the switching to other weapons are invalid and you people should even feel ashamed to bring them up. Now, im not asking for weapon switching, that would defeat the purpose of the uniqueness of our profession, all Im asking is a little more attunement specialization, more versatility, being viable in all contexts or vast mayority at least, not JUST WvW raids.

You know, not everyone is a WvW player, some of us like to……play sPvP and tPvP ‘GASP’

I keep hearing the same old argument; “dont play it”, “l2p” , “you suck” but I dont see any real good counter argument as to way we cant have a ranged DPS staff build. Yes you can argue that we have a lot of CC and AoE which is great in groups, but thing is, other professions have the same (if not more) CC and AoE and yet they can fulfill teamfights and solo fights purposes. Im looking at necros, mesmers, guardians, even a warrior can switch freely back and forth between these two. Now, you notice a pattern, all the mentioned classes share something in common; they can switch weapons and have different weapons with different purposes, some weapons even fulfilling both roles(!!!!!) therefore you can conclude (and if you dont arrive to the same conclusion then you are being stubborn) that they have versatility.

We are “supposedly” the kings of versatility, yet, when we go from a massive zerg to a branched 3v3 or 4v4 we get our smokey b|_|tts completely burnt because we lack the tools to adapt to those situations, therefore we lack versatility. Repeat with me;

We are supposed to the kings of versatility yet we lack it

Unlike other professions we cant decide to wear D/D mid fights from staff, or S/D. Therefore all points implying the switching to other weapons are invalid and you people should even feel ashamed to bring them up. Now, im not asking for weapon switching, that would defeat the purpose of the uniqueness of our profession, all Im asking is a little more attunement specialization, more versatility, being viable in all contexts or vast mayority at least, not JUST WvW raids.

You know, not everyone is a WvW player, some of us like to……play sPvP and tPvP ‘GASP’

I believe for the most part staff ele damage wise is fine (could use some improvements outside of fire but i guess it would be ok with these fixes) the issue is unreliability and easy-to-read-and-dodge-fully gameplay.

making attunements 10 secs baseline, and traiting into one attunement also reduces the CD of said attunement. ( not very substantially, lets say 1.5 seconds per 10 points) That would give us some options to deviate from arcana, same with Blasting staff (arcana VIII) , make that baseline AoE for staff.

Lastly, increase DPS and projectile speed across the board for all non-fire attunements autoattacks, make autoattacks worth using;

fire: 1 second cast and another to land, more than enough for a thief to appear and dodge and disappear and repeat.

Water; Im not sure what have an auto attack, but probably increasing what you want the skill to be used for, either healing or damage, but both are non existent and pointless to use. I read somewhere a suggestion to give combo AA to eles, that is, first attack is the same, second does a sall healing blast for larger AoE and the 3rd freezes the target for 2-3 secs.

Air; make projectile speed much, MUCH, MUCH faster, it is lighting, it should be scary, also, emphasize the single DPS character of it, make the first hit &way harder*, but successive hits have diminishing return, also, 4 bounces (that, with a 50% biminishing return, the 4th hit would hit for only 12.5% damage of the first one). Fulfills its overall damage and still has a single target purpose

earth is fine; could use some small projectile speed buff, but minimal.

Finally, the only other fixes would be, fire #2 lava font could apply damage on application, it is insane to have casting time and delay time, at least make them waste a CD or eat one tick, cuz right now just hitting once require them to be nearly afk.

Lastly, make air #3 actually hit something, make it like updraft, except that maybe homing or increase the radius of it, because hitting it is near impossible. While we are it, decrease air #2 casting time, by a whole second, the damage is not near worth the long casting and the blind radius isnt all that great even with blasting staff, either increase the radius of the blind (by a lot, enough to justify the casting time) or decrease casting time and let be as it is, lower CD would help too but that might be OP and too much to ask.

Please Anet give these changes a consideration, I dont want to impose but we all have to agree that right now staff ele is in a bad spot and that mayority of the player base that is on these forums asking for help with staff are not WvW heavy players. Personally Im more of a sPvP and tPvP person, i occasionally go to WvW and I know staff is relatively strong there, but that does not justify its tremendous weakness outside Zergs

LordByron.8369:

its not even as bad as you could think…..unfortunately.

That IS part of the issue….staying in fire equals 90% damage of a rotation (numbers porvided time ago by a player), possibly even more if something breaks your rotation…..(note as rotation is a tactic for EASY fight because any good player or challenging PvE will break your rotation).

So staying in fire let at least have your cd ready for CC, healing or whatever.

once again, an easy fi to eles issues is;

making attunements 10 secs baseline, and traiting into one attunement also reduces the CD of said attunement. ( not very substantially, lets say 1.5 seconds per 10 points) That would give us some options to deviate from arcana, same with Blasting staff (arcana VIII) , make that baseline AoE for staff.

Lastly, increase DPS and projectile speed across the board for all non-fire attunements autoattacks, make autoattacks worth using;

fire: 1 second cast and another to land, more than enough for a thief to appear and dodge and disappear and repeat.

Water; Im not sure what have an auto attack, but probably increasing what you want the skill to be used for, either healing or damage, but both are non existent and pointless to use. I read somewhere a suggestion to give combo AA to eles, that is, first attack is the same, second does a sall healing blast for larger AoE and the 3rd freezes the target for 2-3 secs.

Air; make projectile speed much, MUCH, MUCH faster, it is lighting, it should be scary, also, emphasize the single DPS character of it, make the first hit &way harder*, but successive hits have diminishing return, also, 4 bounces (that, with a 50% biminishing return, the 4th hit would hit for only 12.5% damage of the first one). Fulfills its overall damage and still has a single target purpose

earth is fine; could use some small projectile speed buff, but minimal.

Finally, the only two other fixes would be, fire #2 lava font could apply damage on application, it is insane to have casting time and delay time, at least make them waste a CD or eat one tick, cuz right now just hitting once require them to be nearly afk.

Lastly, make air #3 actually hit something, make it like updraft, except that maybe homing or increase the radius of it, because hitting it is near impossible