Guild Wars 2

ComeAtMe.5932:

this is a revelation holy kitten XD congratz dude

Thanks! I hope you might find something useful there

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

healing signet -30 health per second

This is happening on the 18th? Wouldn’t this be a part of the feature build?

cheese.4739:

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

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

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

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

I think I replied to you about this one on the previous thread so I won’t bore you again with my opinion

I do love frost armor. Blasting ice is amazing.

Forsaker.9213:

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

Condi necros will be a problem always. Even if you change your spec to be anti-condi they can be a nuissance.

But keep practicing. Thieves are manageable with enough patience!

Thanks for watching! Glad you enjoyed it

Alekt.5803:

…

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

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

But thanks for the suggestion!

Forzani.2584:

I apologize if you have answered this earlier. I am guessing you prefer ES as compared to EA is because of the chill when you are blasting in water?

That’s a great question… but it’s so loaded, It’ll be hard to sum up in one post. ES is one of the big reasons I want to create a whole new tutorial video

There are so many interesting things you can do with ES. Chill is definitely one of the big ones, but I’ll go through some of the others (briefly) so you can get an idea, and then experiment.

Chill (defensive):

You’re low on health > switch in to water.
Geyser > Arcane Brilliance (3s of chill)
Ice field > Arcane Wave/Arcane Blast = 8s chill + Ice armor (more chill, and reduced incoming damage).

Blowing all cooldowns… you can get 12-15s of chill which is great if they aren’t cleansing.

Air (Stomping):

Enemy player is downed. Attuning to air turns your arcane abilities into blinds.

Arcane Shield = 3x block, then AoE blind (good luck trying to interrupt that…)
Arcane Wave = AoE Blind
Arcane Blast = Single-target blind (for engies, rangers, warriors, guardians and Necros)

Fire:

Burning! Really not much more than that. If you’re using your arcanes in fire—spread them out so that when one gets cleansed, you can apply it again.

Earth (My favorite!):

There’s actually a lot you can do with arcane immobilizes. But this is the one I use the most:

Start in water (you just healed to full) – they’re [possibly] chilled from Arcane Brilliance.
> (opt) Use Frozen Ground to pull their dodge.
>Use Ice Spike.

Switch to Earth.
> Eruption
> Arcane Wave/Blast (while channeling Eruption). 2s Immobilize.
> (opt) if you set this up right, your frozen ground should also give you frost armor.
> Shockwave (2s more immobilize)

Switch to Fire.
> Lava Font
> Flame Burst.

I especially recommend this combo for fightning ranged classes and other clever opponents who refuse to walk into the Unsteady ground. This gives you an option to pin them down.

Note* – you have to be quite close to pull this off, or the immobilize from arcane wave/blast wont last long enough for shockwave to channel/travel.

There are a few more less interesting ones, but I hope that answers your question.

EA is Great. But the utility that ES gives you is immense. It’s really hard for me to switch back to EA now unless I have a very specific reason.

Thunderbrew.7034:

Why is your build under “Whats different” heading not the same as that
you show in the tutorial? Just clarifying.

That tutorial is quite old. I linked it to help with identifying the combos I’m using since the combos are all the same for both builds.

There is a lot of missing combos from the tutorial though that are being employed in the 1v1 dueling video thanks to elemental surge though.

I may decide to make an updated tutorial. We’ll see.

Yes. The changes I mentioned are dependent on game mode.

In WvW, you can use lemongrass food to reduce the effect of condis (I run that food all the time anyways to help me clear random condi)

In sPvP, you can use melandru runes and change them on the fly. They’re free, so just leave a stack of Divinity and Melandru runes in your inventory depending on the opponents you’re fighting. I also use melandru for my skyhammer staff build. Obviously, you’ll only switch to Melandru if you’re sure they have several condi builds. (I fought a team of 3 necros and an engi yesterday. It’s a good example of a pre-emptive build swap opportunity. They may not all be condi, but you can be sure to encounter at least 1, but probably 2.)

All the other mentioned suggestions can be changed in both game modes before a fight/match

Malcastus.6240:

Neatly played, but against good players wielding condition builds this build will be severely handicapped. Outhealing isn’t an option with only three blast finishers, as the arcane healing only does well when doing damage to multiple opponents simultaneously. How do you feel you fare against good condi builds, having barely any condi removal?

I like the idea of using arcane finishers with staff and all its combo fields, but arcane houses too many good traits and leaves you with very difficult choices, especially when wielding a staff, in the end leaving no satisfactory builds for me personally.

It depends on the class of that condition build.

You’ll always be fighting on the backfoot against a condi build, but condi engi’s are manageable. Condi necros are not.

Condi engi’s can be handled by just staying way back and DPSing off-point. Dodge the grenades. When he comes at you to apply Elixir Gun condis, or bomb condis, you CC and move back just like the video suggests. But defending a point against a condi engi is impossible. You have to let him decap it while you try to burn him down at range.

Cleansing Wave isn’t really in the build to help counter the condi meta. It’s there to help clear condis against non-condi builds who also happen to have some conditions in their skills (Like thief poison).

But as I put in the first post, if you KNOW their team is full condi you can alter the build without retraiting.

1) Take out Arcane Blast and add in Cleansing Fire.
2) Change Elemental Surge to Evasive Arcana
3) Cycle in to water every 10 seconds.
4) Use Lemongrass, -40% condi duration food (I run this all the time, anyways)
It won’t be an easy win (it never is), but you’ll have a fighting chance.
5) Rune of Melandru x6 (sPvP)

Ultimately, though – just like with any other class, when you find a player who is your natural hard-counter, you avoid him like the plague. Generally speaking, if I’m fighting against my hardcounter by myself, I’ve done something very wrong.

Thanks for watching!

DeWolfe.2174:

GJ! I broke out my Staff Ele after being parked for a long time. Primarily for the Scarlet Knight’s fight in LA to really rain down some hell on them. Really inspiring to see your video. I have Exotic Celestial armor I never even equipped yet. Think I’ll give it a try.

Great to hear. My own experience with PvE is quite limited. So let me know how it works out for you.

Thanks for watching!

TainoFuerte.8136:

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks for watching!

Morderger.6298:

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

Hahaha.

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

Thanks for watching!

Throwing in my support for a great Ele and guildmate

Check this guy out for awesome D/D skeelz – he and I play in the same GvG squad

Great video

Hackuuna.4085:

One tip I can give you as another staff user who dabbled in 1v1 a while ago is that fireball actually isn’t so bad if you manually aim it. You can also use this while someone is in stealth around you by just aiming your camera at the ground (looking down) and shooting fireballs as the splash damage still hits them.

If you get good enough at aiming manually (i.e. not having a target) and aiming it at the ground by their feet they can’t sidestep it by fooling your auto aiming. Try it, it adds another element of skill to staff.

Oh wow! Hey thanks for the tip! I wasn’t aware of that.

I always thought if I didnt have a target that fireballs just exploded at my feet. I really didn’t even think they were pointed where my camera was faced.

That’s incredibly helpful for clearing out those shadow refuges. Thanks!

On an unrelated note – I updated the original post.

UPDATES MAR 3/13/14
I tracked my way onto the SoloQ leaderboard playing only this staff build. It’s probably not a monumental achievement for most… but for me, on this class/weaponset, I’m quite proud of it.
http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y82/kildron/657_zpsff043ad9.jpg

Alfred Nobel.2914:

Awesome! 151515

Thanks for watching!

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

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

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

Mbelch.9028:

Not sure if we connected yet, but it’s not too late. Hit me up when you see me on or have spoons connect us.

for a duel, you mean?

I’d be honoured Hit me up in game

FrownyClown.8402:

Http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vEAQFAWnMISJD2zAuMAdEGAIKSpFhCLco8ImZqB-TkAA1CtIoSRljKDVSqsUN+A

Try this in PvP. Switch to water use an arcane ability. It will slow them and apply vulnerability. Use water 2. That with the 20% extra damage while in water will make it hit for a large amount. All your arcanes should hit 20% harder in water too. You will be more vulnerable to conditions though

Thanks for the suggestions.

I’m actually giving Shard of Ice a try at your request, and a few other players as well. I’m liking it a lot so far… but I’ll keep you posted.

I think Cleansing Water is staying on the bar though. Without it, I have no condi clear (and this build is already quite weak to condi)

Thanks for watching!

Tyler Chapman.1832:

#elepocalype

Yyyyyeeeaaaaaahhhhh

PvE only.

Although tbh, I can’t picture any good scepter build that doesn’t use Fresh Air. I would find some way to put those 10 pts into air and get it. Look up videos on ‘Fresh Air, Scepter’ and they will explain why Fresh Air is strong (PvE and PvP)

Thunderbrew.7034:

I followed the link to build, and looked at the gear, but I don’t
see a sigil in the Staff.

What is the OP using?

Oops! Thanks for point that out. I fixed the original post to include the sigil
(Sigil of Energy).

Thanks for watching!

Yamsandjams.3267:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

and could lack in WvW(idk, don’t play it).

Actually, staff is the goto weapon for large scale WvW. Some people don’t even want eles around with them unless they’re running staff (not that the other weapons aren’t useful in their own right).

Our GvG team uses 2 staff eles and a D/D ele for the ‘gank squad’. So there’s definitely some room there. There are also a tonne of D/D eles in the OS who love to duel.

My guild sure does love staff eles though…

google.3709:

noob translation: Give us the date of the patch, or we’ll tie texi to a tree?

Thanks Google translator! You’ve saved the day!

mcarswell.3768:

personally i haven’t felt the need to run any vigor traits since i started running Superior Sigil of Energy on my staff. getting half your endurance back every 10 seconds is better than vigor imo.

Someone had told me they are also going to nerf vigor in the next ‘feature build’.

So that will be interesting to see, as well. Many of my guildmates have speculated that sigil of energy will be worth a lot more after the patch.

Sizer.5632:

Really nice video, you can tell that youre always patient and wait for the best time to use your utilities, definitely something myself and probably a lot of others need to work on. But do you ever use renewing stamina instead of elemental attunement? The protection is great but its so hard to survive in this game with only your normal dodges especially in fights bigger than 1v1, which is one of the reasons ive never been able to run an arcane spec like that (granted im nowhere near as experienced).

Thanks for posting it though, gives a lot of great info for people who really want to play staff eles outside zergs but find it hard to

Sigil of Energy, all the way!

I think a big part of duelling is learning to save your dodge rolls and utilities. Learning what your opponent is about to do, and then planning for it. The more you practice, the more you’ll find your energy bar sitting near full.

But I definitely understand that desire for more vigor—more than most, actually! I’m really bad with blowing my dodges needlessly (you find a few in this video too). Usually its caused because i’m used to running Evasive Arcana, and I roll to get the effect… but then nothing happens and I want to slap myself.

But if you go through the video and watch my energy bar—it stays above the halfway line most of the time. This is due to sigil of energy—because you’re swapping attunements every 2.5 seconds, you’re going to get half a bar of energy every time the ICD comes up (10 seconds). So as long as you’re only dodging once every 8s or so (cause of passive regen) you’ll never find yourself wanting.

Another really great trick (brought up in the ‘Burn the Zeitgeist’ thread) is burning retreat is a free dodge which you can use while immobilized. It’s an amazing trick which I use at least once in this video. At 1:40, you can see it happen (link below):

http://youtu.be/sXEmfz1L36s?t=1m40s

So that’s another great way to save energy

Thanks for watching, and your suggestions!

Asuna.6591:

I’ve watched for 1v1 video and I loved it, it is very interesting what you have done with the staff. I’ll try to find a way to practice it and to be efficient for my group in WvW. Thanks !

I just have one question about the Arcane Lightning trait. It does not have a cool down ?

Cheese answered your first question perfectly (and correctly)

cheese.4739:

It doesn’t, no – but the effect doesn’t stack, as it says in the tooltip, so if you use an Arcane skill while there’s still time left on the buff you’ll ‘lose’ however many seconds it is.

Thanks for watching! In WvW, I would only run this build if you were roaming with 5 or less. But make sure your party knows about your water fields to make the most use of your class.

Good luck and let us know how it goes!

SlayerUK.5029:

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

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

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

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

If you can change skills before a fight, do it. Free win.

But you cant change skills in tournies Earth is pretty cool. It just annoys me that it has condition damage. It’s good, dont get me wrong. But condi ele doesn’t work well when I do it

cheese.4739:

…

I loved reading this post. You followed my exact line of thinking while developing my current build. I thought “Hey! Protection from blasting an ice field… Hmmmm……”

And then I thought “Zephyr’s Boon” and went “HMMMMMMMM…..”

And with lava axe for fire aura?! Yay! More reason to put it on my bar!

… Ultimately it didnt fit my playstyle at all. I hated relying on that ice field being up (40s cooldown)

Let me know how it turns out for you

Tei.1704:

…

Thanks for watching the video! As I said near the start, I won’t be making any more comments regarding opponents—I feel I’ve said my peace about them and people can take it or leave it at that

Under the current meta, I certainly can’t argue your points here. It’s hard to say that ‘Staff is good now!’ when there’s so much evidence to the contrary. I don’t think any amount of videos and tutorials will ever convince anyone to take staff ele on their tPvP team. But I hope some people will watch this video and, if nothing else, give it a try to keep entertained while we wait for the new patch.

Failing that, I hope it was fun to watch and offered a fresh addition to the menagerie of dueling videos out there

cheese.4739:

KrazyFlyinChicken.5936:

cheese.4739:

If you were using multiple Arcanes for burst, without Arcane Mastery, you might lose the benefit since the trait doesn’t stack – but with your heal being Brilliance, and with traited Arcane cooldowns, you’ll probably have higher uptime on AL than the time you spend in Air attunement.

I think you meant AL (in place of Arcane Mastery) but I can definitely understand where this argument is coming from. AL will almost certainly have a 90% uptime, at least. So it’s basically a tossup between 10% more critical damage (all attunements), or 10% more overall damage (Air only). It’s a tough call. I think either can work.

Another point for Air Training: It also works with meteor shower. Switch into air during the cast to get 10% more damage.

Thanks for watching, Cheese. As always, your insights are appreciated

No, I meant Arcane Mastery – your heal and other arcanes recharge slightly faster, so you can cast them more frequently and bring up AL more regularly.
Pre-Brilliance, you’d be much more likely to cast all arcanes at once

At any rate, I might try this out in the next few days, or at least steal your ideas/suggestions and add them to my own build – I’m a bit bored of getting called a noob for running Diamond Skin (by minion necroes, decap engineers and spirit rangers), and my PvP MMR has been kinda ruined by 4v5s over the past week so I haven’t got much to lose if it turns out it’s not for me! ^__^

Oh, one other thing – Lingering Elements was only fixed for the 5-point minors, right? I’m pretty sure that Air Training and similar still don’t linger, even though to make use of any you need to use trait slots, and to get more than two at once you kinda have to cycle all your elements and be locked out of most of your skills for 10s…

Ahh okay. I see what you mean.

And by all means, steal away. I didn’t make this video to keep it all a secret

I see what you mean now with the AL/AM. A good point It’s interesting to see how one little skill can change everything you know about a class/build.

The meteor shower wouldn’t be using lingering elements though. You start in fire and switch to lightning during channeling:

Fire > Channel Meteor Shower > Switch to Lightning (+10% damage) > and you can even drop a static field if its a available to keep them in the shower (or a gust to push them back in!)

I wonder if it will affect the meteors if you’re in tornado as well as air attunement (since the option to switch attunement disappears after transformation.

Hmm…

CMstorm.8679:

In pvp, how bad would it be if you switched out Elemental Attunement for Arcane Energy and also used Adventurer Runes + arcane brilliance so you’d get 3/4 of your endurance back whenever you’d heal

Early on in this build, I tried removing elemental Attunement for Blasting Staff (acrane Mastery, blasting staff, evasive arcana… sounds pretty sweet!)

But in the end I opted out of Blasting Staff for Elemental Attunement because of protection.

Protection is so important. Almost every player you fight will have a burst combo. Dueling players enough will teach you what preludes the burst (Mesmers is immobilize, thieves its timing their stealth durations, etc).

When you see it coming… switch in to earth for protection to mitigate the burst.

Then eruption + unsteady ground + geyser (on the eruption) + Arcane Brilliance + (optional) arcane wave = full health and damage mitigated.

Predicting your opponent and using that protection is invaluable. Especially since you can get it every 10 seconds if you need to.

But if you find another way to make it work let us know! I’d love to hear more suggestions.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

KrazyFlyinChicken.5936:

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Either this, or your original “Burn the Zeitgeist” Staff Ele video should really be stickied.

Lol thanks. I don’t think its on that level, but I appreciate the sentiment

When I started up on my staff Ele and really wanted to learn rotations, mentality, ect. there were no guides specifically tailored for staff in pvp besides daphoenix’s. (This was like last month) I fished through a bunch of older pages in the ele forums just to find your guide, and it taught me quite a bit.

If you don’t feel this worth a sticky, ya should make one that is. There are many terribad staff Eles out there that are giving the class the reputation as “rally-bait.” x_x Videos like the ones you produce could go a long way to changing that.

That’s not a bad idea

Given the success of this video so far, I may have to do another full-on tutorial. There’s a lot of additional content I’d like to add. We’ll have to see!

Yamsandjams.3267:

I think this is a good demo of how to adjust the placement of the staff’s AoEs based on your opponent’s attack style. I fight some staff eles sometimes who just try to drop all their skill on me or the people they’re fighting, but against a melee opponent it’s often best to use them to control space and force the enemy into choosing to take damage.

For instance, in the thief battles, even just a simple lava font would sometimes cause them to back of slightly, giving you breathing room. I thought the fight against the hammer/rifle warrior was good too because you would essentially change gears when he swapped weapons and start moving and dropping your AoEs very differently.

I usually don’t like celestial heavy builds because they feel like a well rounded but dull rock, but I liked the showcase for it. I think I would probably use arcane lightning instead of air training, and maybe shard of ice instead of soothing wave.

Also, I like how that one spectator in obsidian sanctum ran up close behind you and gave you and extra 20% boost on your heal in one of the fights.

EDIT: Also, what is the sPvP version of this? Celestial amulet with berserker jewel?

EDIT 2: Any particular reason for not selecting traveler runes? Or is it just that you can’t be bothered to spend that much right now?

Thanks for watching (closely)!

It’s actually really counter-intuitive that staff ele needs to be close up to your opponent to really get the full effect. So I’m glad you noticed that spacing. There is a very fine line I have to walk between getting in their face, and backing out. Because if I’m not on top of those fields when blast finishers go off, I’m not getting their benefit (which is almost 60% of what makes this build work).

You basically have to play like a thief. Get in close, and deal your damage—and then use your CC (instead of stealth) to back out and apply pressure to get your next combo ready.

Everything comes down to that CC—very much like a thief’s stealth. It’s critical to walk that line, and I’m really happy you saw that. The warrior duel is a source of great pride for me for especially this reason.

On the note of the OS spectator… yeah. Oops It’s absolutely not my intention to do that (Even in my video I had to check to see if I accidentally hit him. You can see my camera swivel to him for half a second).

It’s also annoying for burning retreat because I can’t always see what’s behind me when I use it. But I don’t have a choice sometimes. Oh well. It’s not a perfect arena, but it’s close enough to be fair.

The sPvP equivalent for me is just Celestial/Celestial/Divinity. But there’s been a lot of people saying I should try Zerker/Valk.

I don’t think I like the idea of giving up the extra stats. But there’s always room to experiment when you’re this far outside of the meta >.<

I see no reason why Traveller Runes can’t work. Makes good sense to me. But i’m a welfare elementalist. I can’t afford better

mcarswell.3768:

i hadn’t played my ele in a long time and this build and playstyle got me psyched on it again. nothing like a new build to revitalize an old toon. thanks!

I’m glad! Good luck, and let me know if you need any help. Thanks for watching!

Chaos Archangel.5071:

Either this, or your original “Burn the Zeitgeist” Staff Ele video should really be stickied.

Lol thanks. I don’t think its on that level, but I appreciate the sentiment

MightyMicah.7451:

Wow, this is great, man! Sometimes I’ve wondered if this is the direction that Anet is pushing. More of a support/heal class that is still viable in a 1v1 setting. Anyways, well done! It’s always nice to see a skilled elementalist, especially a staff one!

(By the way, I commented on one of your youtubes that I think I saw you in OS the other day.)

Im quite worried with the way Anet seems to balance things as well. But it’s still a great game… so what more can we do but wait

I cannot seem to reply to your youtube comment. For some reason I don’t have a reply option – so ill reply here

We fight SoS alot so its quite likely you’ve seen me there I’m usually the idiot jumping up and down in the middle of the OS hoping someone will come duel me. It’s funny because I actually sometimes had a hard time finding a duel. I guess people think the same thing: “He’s a staff… he’s probably just here to watch.”

Hehe.

Chaos Archangel.5071:

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

Thanks for the high praise Chaos

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

Meglobob.8620:

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

But what I took from the vids were:-

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

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

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

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

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

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

But you know, well done for trying…

Thanks for watching! I appreciate all feedback

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

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

Point 5 is very valid. No arguments here, lol

manveruppd.7601:

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

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

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

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

The note on Speed

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

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

Full Ascended Gear

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

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

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

Terrible class

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

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

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

The correct build

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

This is my build that is used in the OS:

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

phaeris.7604:

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

Thanks for watching!

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

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

Or maybe i’m masochistic.

Thanks for watching!

Phantaram.1265:

…

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

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

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

KrazyFlyinChicken.5936:

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

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

Don’t give up! Fighting thieves is thrilling.

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

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

Ryld.1340:

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

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

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

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

Sunshine.5014:

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

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

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

It’s a shame.

/rant

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

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

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

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

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

Celtus.8456:

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

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

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

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

Uhtameit.2413:

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

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

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

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

Forzani.2584:

That is freaking awesome KFC. I have watched many videos and I don’t recall seeing anyone playing with as much skill as you do.

I think it drives a melee class crazy trying to get at you. the Rifle/hammer Warrior fight is a great example. At the start of the fight he did a good job avoiding your Lava Fonts. A few minutes in I can imagine him raging because he was having such a tough time hitting you consistently. So when he actually got close enough to hit you he was more than happy to eat the Lava just to have the satisfaction to actually hit you.

Me thinks that is part of your strategy. Lots of patience waiting for the other guy to lose patience and make mistakes

well done

Haha, definitely. One of the biggest problems with staff ele is that it’s largely a defensive role you’re playing in the fights. So a lot of the time you’re right it does come down to waiting for your opponent to make a mistake.

On the note of that rifle warrior, I have to agree. I’m sure he was getting quite annoyed with me by the end. Every time he switched to rifle, I’d walk up to him and blast him at 0 range. Then he’d switch back to hammer and I’d run off and kite—and yes im almost certain you hit the nail on the head. By the end of the duel he was just pushing his way through all my fields to get some hits down. I can’t deny I was more than a little amused by that. But I think that’s what ultimately cost him the fight. The magnetic aura to his killshot put him in over his head when he was already at half from wading through all those fields.

Thanks for watching! Glad you enjoyed it

Clear.8512:

Thanks for posting the video. Appreciate that you took the time to explain scenarios and actually showed times where you did not execute perfectly and had to reorganize yourself.

Also hard to hate this video when the music choice was classic SNES and not generic screamo.

Thanks for watching Clear I think you must be referring to the tutorial since I didn’t do any explanation of the 1v1s. But I’m still glad you enjoyed it!

The tutorial video is a little dated now, and the build has changed immensely—but the combos are all the same. If you take the 1v1 video and break it down slowly you’ll see all of the same combos used there as they were in the first video. I even added a few more which I’m probably going to make a new video about later.

And thank you for mentioning the music. I was beginning to think no one watched the video at all given that no comment was made about it. I was beginning to think that if I didn’t add heavy industrial death-metal that I’d be laughed off the forums. I thought very carefully about the music I chose (even if its not all classic game music) and eventually just went with the ones I liked.

Thanks for watching and posting!

Uhtameit.2413:

…

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

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

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

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

So why take this build over a D/D?

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

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

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

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

Make a post on the bug forums – looks like you found another one, then.

What kind of vacuum cleaner do you use?

cheese.4739:

If you were using multiple Arcanes for burst, without Arcane Mastery, you might lose the benefit since the trait doesn’t stack – but with your heal being Brilliance, and with traited Arcane cooldowns, you’ll probably have higher uptime on AL than the time you spend in Air attunement.

I think you meant AL (in place of Arcane Mastery) but I can definitely understand where this argument is coming from. AL will almost certainly have a 90% uptime, at least. So it’s basically a tossup between 10% more critical damage (all attunements), or 10% more overall damage (Air only). It’s a tough call. I think either can work.

Another point for Air Training: It also works with meteor shower. Switch into air during the cast to get 10% more damage.

Thanks for watching, Cheese. As always, your insights are appreciated