Guild Wars 2

Trigr.6481:

…

Thanks for your comments

Try leaving the zone and re-entering it after putting this trait in. Some skills do that.

Warlord of Chaos.7845:

Nice video! I really enjoy watching staff eles in a non zerg setting. Anyway, I am not sure if ya knew this but celestial ammy is getting buffed in pvp so yea I think you will enjoy that Also, Imo arcane lightning would still be better then air training since it would be constant 10 percent damage boost rather then 10 percent in a specific time, and also you are running all arcane utils

I had not heard they were buffing celestial. Oh good grief, that’s excellent I’m still worried about my celestial set in WvW though with the ferocity changes… but oh well!

I made a post above about Arcane Lightning — you’re completely right. Arcane Lightning is definitely a great trait and (arguably) better than air training for this build. I’ll have to give it another look.

Thanks for watching!

Avead.5760:

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

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

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

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

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

BlackBeard.2873:

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

Thanks for sharing this, keep it up!

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

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

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

Thanks for watching!

CMstorm.8679:

That is a really solid build. I gotta admit!
What do you think about Arcane Lightning over Air Training and Piercing Shards over Soothing Wave?

Arcane lightning can definitely work in place of Air training. I used to run that a lot, but I changed to air training because it helps me burst.

One of the biggest problems with killing an enemy as a staff is that you can’t catch them! Often times, they’ll get really low on health, only to jump back and strafe left/right to avoid your fireballs (So frustrating!! They really need to fix this).

Having 10% more damage in air lets you auto-attack with air more efficiently to finish people off. This auto-attack tracks the target and won’t miss when they’re at range. Couple that with bolt to the heart, and your auto-attack is on par with fireball (but it actually hits!)

As for soothing wave—I don’t think I would. Vulnerability is great, but regen on this build is critical. Especially against thieves, when this is trait is going off every time the ICD comes up (because they don’t NOT crit) makes it invaluable.

The Game Slayer.7632:

I can’t help but notice that a big reason you’re even winning is because of your arcane burst.

Definitely. All of the arcane utilities synergize very well with staff. Add to that the (Out of control) critical damage currently in the game, you’ve got a set of utilities which are going to hit very hard, with really short cooldowns.

And in 1v1, they’re also great for sustain since you can use 3/4 of them defensively when used in conjunction with water fields.

Even better than that—your burst goes off at the same time as your heal (since you’re blasting the snot out of those fields)—so a lot of the time, your opponent will think they’ve got you…

Then bam. Full health, and they’re choking down 6k+ damage with your arcane utilities—and condis from elemental surge.

Thanks for watching!

jkels.6398:

well done I enjoyed watching that video

Thanks for watching!

Uhtameit.2413:

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

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

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

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

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

On top of that, you get:

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

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

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

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

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

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

Uhtameit.2413:

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

Ugruk.4069:

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

Jasher.6580:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lupanic.6502:

hehe love the chicken

lol – thanks for watching all the way through

Cush.4063:

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

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

Graendall.4765:

lol i am running the same build with daggers.Well almost..

Yeah – sadly there reallly aren’t a lot of options to be creative with elementalist these days. Still, it’s a lot of fun to try.

Sunshine.5014:

Hi Azilyi, do you have footage of this build playing vs a condition build? I notice that you didn’t fight a condition class in the video.

Nope.

I only found one or two condi engis, and one condi necro in my whole three days in the OS. I think that they are fairly rare there because people perceive them—and then either build to combat them (and then its a sure-win) or choose not to fight them at all (and so they get bored and leave).

It’s kind of a game of Rock, paper scissors…. Everyone builds for Rock. So when paper comes around, only those who play scissors end up dueling. Then paper just buggers off.

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) 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.

Summary

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

Disclaimer

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

The Build is for sPvP (technical)

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

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

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

Leave comments!

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

As always, thanks for watching!

The Videos

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

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

~~~*~

UPDATES MAR 3/13/14

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

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

Sorry about the double posts. Was having a weird glitch when posting… they should be deleting soon….

Summary

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

Disclaimer

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

The Build is for sPvP (technical)

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

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

This build grants both sustain and spike DPS. Elemental Surge adds a few other interesting combos which will catch a lot of players off-guard—but is largely a solo/sPvP tool.

The Videos

Featured Video – 1v1 Staff Elementalist Duels:

Tutorial Video:

Summary

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

Disclaimer

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

The Build is for sPvP (technical)

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

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

This build grants both sustain and spike DPS. Elemental Surge adds a few other interesting combos which will catch a lot of players off-guard—but is largely a solo/sPvP tool.

The Videos

Featured Video – 1v1 Staff Elementalist Duels:

Tutorial Video:

Summary

The footage for this video was taken over approximately 3 days of dueling. Included are my favorite 1v1 wins. These duels take place in Obsidian Sanctum, Solo-Queue Tournaments and private duel rooms. The builds for all are very similar.

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

Advice for New Staff Elementalists

Fighting thieves in Obsidian Sanctum is much harder than sPvP. If you’re just starting out, I suggest practicing your skills in sPvP before taking it to OS or risk being severely depressed. Don’t go into any duel expecting to win, and keep at it. Practice your combos over and over until they’re second nature. The tutorial for some of the combos used in this video can be found below.

What’s different?

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?vEAQFAWnMISJD2zAuMAdEGAIKgxEhCLco8ImZqB-zUyAoeA6DQyvIasVtioxqqh0LYqzkqcDs3QZlUAMJMC-w

The major differences from this build and others is the use of Elemental Surge, and Arcane Mastery. This build does not use blasting staff. Many elementalists will struggle with this for a while—but the skill is not all that useful once you learn how to use your skills correctly. Electric Discharge (15 air) is also a big part of what makes this work.

Leave Comments!

I will reply to everyone (barring trolls) so please leave a reply! I’d love to hear what you think.

The Videos

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

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

~~~~~

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

900% agreement.

Justin ODell.9517:

@Sensotix.4106

We didn’t promise anything, we shared our high level road-map plans.

This is why we don’t like sharing dates. I know you’re waiting on things, and the wait is driving me crazy too, but saying we made promises when we clearly did not does not help get the content out sooner.

If you want greater transparency, like I do, then you must accept that dates, features, and plans are not a static promise. Things can happen to shift priorities, dates, or designs, causing things to changed, be pushed back, or accelerated.

Please stop.

/personal rant

A majority of players understand that development takes time and is due to setback. But without being transparent about your upcoming plans is snubbing that community of intelligent, rational people—and leaves room only for doubt.

To an intelligent community that understands your plight, your message is received thusly:

“We cannot be sure how some silly people will react. So we will cater to the silly people and not tell you anything.”

We live in an age of information. In the world with internet, people feel slighted when learning that they are being intentionally left in the dark. The archaic model of ’don’t ask, don’t tell’ is dead.

Transparency. Give the player-base the information to respect your decisions—and you will be pleasantly surprised by their response

Nice build!

But why not mist form instead of arcane shield? Mist form will help you do most of those things, but also save you from thief burst.

Other than that—this build is hella fun for tPvP when you have a team to support. Having this kind of staff ele in a team-fight means your side will win almost every time.

The only problem I had with it is if an enemy thief figures you out early on—they can shut you down for the whole match

Great video – i’m really happy to see any D/D ele video that isn’t stacking boon duration. +1

- Elementalist damage is low compared to other classes.
- Elementalist survivability is low compared to other classes.
- Our burst damage is reliant on executing perfect 8-button combos with 40 second cooldowns—and even then, our burst is only moderately competitive with other classes.
- Forced to run cantrips (for the last year)

After playing elementalist exclusively for the better part of my entire GW2 career (8 months) I thought I would try thief to learn how to beat them.

Couldn’t stop laughing/crying over the damage caused by autoattack and stomping noobs with 3 buttons.

Rickster.8752:

3, The feature patch is due in “late spring/early summer” – colin johanson.

I think this is all we really want the devs to say and remove all doubt.

xantosnightwish.5438:

Allie derails the thread herself by attacking the community for being confused and engaging in a WoW vs GW2 debate….then we’re the disrespectful ones? Something needs to change.

Pretty disappointed here, too. There were dozens of well-worded, respectful responses.

She picked one of the bad apples, and somehow everyone is disrespecting the developers…

Since the last thread got closed… this one is worded well/eloquently.

When is the next balance update? General guess? No idea? Any answer would be great.

Rennoko.5731:

people just want to know if there is any balancing to take place on March 18th.

Yes, No, Don’t know

This please.

Rennoko.5731:

Does the March 18th patch include any of the balance updates mentioned in Ready-Up or otherwise

This is the burning question everyone has been asking.

Your answer so far has been “Mar 18 is a maintenance patch, not a feature patch” which is vague and misleading.

I really don’t care for the nerf-reversal of Cleansing water. Where this isn’t nerfed in WvW, every elementalist is already forced into 30 pts of water.

If they make this the same in spvp, we’ll see something very similar.

Datsuni.4678:

GROUCH!
…
Mods will probably remove this
…

Let’s try to keep this respectful, eh? Can you at least edit your post to be less accusatory. I’d rather not give the devs any reason to close this thread.

Thank you.

I would also like this answered.

Can someone post a link/quote the thread where this is stated?

I have been looking forward to March 18 for some time… This makes me pretty upset.

Shatters.4953:

Faster and more frequent PvP updates to balance.

Pretty much this.

They don’t need to be making huge sweeping changes to the game. Minor tweaks, here and there, to trait lines and stats which really shouldn’t take up a lot of resources.

This month’s patch could be -0.5s on immobilize to supply crate.

Maybe next patch they’ll drop it another 0.5s if it’s just not working.

Easy stuff. No need to keep reordering the meta… just tweak it.

Auramancer is fine with any weapon set with more than 1 aura…

But you’re using 3 trait slots to buff up ONE ability, which isn’t even great to begin with. Magnetic Aura is possible the least useful one.

And make AoE even less useful than it already is?

Single-target DPS is already pretty dominant. I’m not sure why you’d want to push that further in this direction.

Proposal Overview
The ladder system needs more visibility/filters to accurately judge a player’s progression of skill.

Goal of Proposal

The current leaderboard makes it difficult to gauge how you are improving. I would like to make it more easily visible to weigh my own performance through less-biased statistics that I can monitor/judge based on an individual’s own criteria.

Proposal Functionality
Create a multitude of filters for the leaderboard to judge one’s own progression. Some of the filters which should be added:

A) Filter based on what class you are playing. I would like to know how many rounds I’ve won while playing elementalist vs. Engineer, for example.

B) Filter based on specific class rankings only. I would like to be able to compare my ranking as an elementalist against other players on their elementalists.

C) (optional) Filter based on weapon set of the class you are playing. The deeper we can drill down into these statistics the more we’ll know about the game in general. I think this will also help with development/balancing.

Associated Risks

Being able to drill too deep into the sPvP statistics will reveal glaring inconsistencies regarding certain weapon sets and classes. If everyone can see that everyone in the top 100 elementalists is running dagger/dagger, then there will be outcry from the other weapon sets for balance.

If everyone can see that Thieves are at the top 100 overall solo-queue leaderboard, there will be an outcry for nerfs (even if they’re just more naturally suited to solo-queue than other classes)

Thanks

That’s pretty much the standard (although I think you meant to put in blasting staff instead of renewing stamina).

The gear is kind of odd… but not so far off as to be considered irregular. I would still probably go with 2x Rune of Water for 10% more boon duration instead of 20% in might only.

Other than that, looks pretty standard.

Wyrden.4713:

o thanks!

btw on arcan power, all 5 atks make the arcan surge effect?

Yes.

IE: if you just autoattack in water—you’ll add 15 seconds of chill (hilarious). 3s for every attack—and every attack is a crit

The devs have recently stated in the profession/balance forums that staff ele is getting a buff pertaining to anti-condition meta.

Personally, I expect changes to diamond skin which will make it useful enough to justify a staff bunker build.

The only reason Ele is even considered viable in WvW is because of our water fields. Take that away, and you’ll never see another staff ele in GvG/WvW again.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJArdhMmMbnxygjDIhCEg4hF4AcY5ROMD1AA-ToAg0CnIqRVjrGTNyas1MsYKC

This is the S/F build I use for burst DPS.

I don’t recommend this if there is more than 1 thief in a game against you.

I’m really glad im not the only one who finds elemental Surge loads of fun.

But I cannot bring myself to use it on a staff build.

Evasive Arcana is too good to miss when you get AoE burning/cleansing wave/another blast finisher for your water fields.

In fact, I really only found it useful on S/F

You can win 1v1 as a staff ele with a lot of practice and a little luck.

But I don’t recommend it. Only if you’re super serial about playing staff ele should you even consider giving it a try. Not just because its hard—but because its hard, and even if you master it you’re never going to get the same results/payoff for your efforts as you would as any other class/weapon choice.

Here’s some “proof” that it works:

Part 1 – Focus on combos/Staff burst damage
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDX7lo1xtak

Part 2 – More 1v1s in this one with a focus on Staff Ele vs. Thief.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roANj4g0Skc

DiogoSilva.7089:

With this setup, you can cleanse 4 conditions around every 10 seconds _without the need of cantrips

Regardless – Every Elementalist is forced into 30 points of water to get their condi cleanse. So why you wouldn’t run cantrips at this point is a wonder…

I can only hope that these announced changes are only scraping the tip of the ice berg. Because as it stands—every ele is going to be running the same build from here to kingdom come. And that build is going to be based upon 30 pts water and cantrips.

And everyone else is going to figure out how to counter it in the first week or two.

There is a “Looking for Team” forum under the sPvP section for this specific purpose.

Give that a try.

oZii.2864:

0/30/0/30/10 S/D with soothing wave, cleansing wave, cleansing water. Regen on trident cleansing wave on dagger 5. I could see this possibly maybe piercing shards instead of cleansing wave with dragon tooth/swap to water combo for extra damage because vital striking is a hard trait to get good mileage out of except in the opener.

This is the build which will benefit the most from the trident regen. And, again, pushing cantrips further into the spotlight.

The patch notes are clearly a fake. This was posted by the devs on the balance forums:

TimeBomb.3427:

I’ll say that internally staff Ele has turned out to be strong, scary strong against condi meta. The glass cannon specs seem to be unchanged but the tankier dps specs have seen substantial improvements. Enough? Arguable. At least ele will now bring the cleanse support it has needed. Will the Signet of Resto change be enough to make it super strong? Arguable, but it’s definitely a viable option now. Do you want to lose the cleanse from ether renewal? Probably not.. but dagger specs see a nice sustain boost from using RS. Additionally, our changes has brought a new role to ele and it’s one hell of a role! I’m sure plenty of people will have tons of fun messing around with what they can do on ele now.

These patch notes show nothing for staff. Nothing for ‘support condi cleanse’.

They’re bogus.

I think we can expect changes to diamond skin. That seems like the most likely scenario there.

Good choice.
S/D is good for small groups.

This is a pretty generic/standard S/D build for WvW.

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?fEAQJArYhMmgbzR5wjDIkHwwJwCiHWQDwhlC5AA-j0BBYfBksAgEBMRtIasVNFRjVZDT5iIqWKgRFGB-w

The celestial gear is my own personal touch. But Zerkers is fine here too.