Guild Wars 2

Would you use it? Is there a role that staff can perform better than x/d?

Emperor.1360:

YourOwnFear.2743:

Higher tier spvp teams? Do you mean tpvp teams and thats is 100% not true. Scepter maybe but not staff.

I do mean sPvP (structured player-versus-player) teams, and it is true. If you speak with some of the top-ranking players, watch streams of top-tier play, and get into the top-tiers too—-you will see organized groups with staff elementalists (usually full damage) all over.

Many low-ranked players, especially on these forums, seem to have a fixation on the staff as a “bad weapon”, or do not like it for sPvP. I am unsure as to whether this is because they feel that the staff is not a “cool enough” weapon in appearance, or if they do not know how to play it. A well-played staff elementalist IS challenging to play (especially if damage-focused, because one can die quickly), and it is likely that many low and mid-tier players simply do not put in the time necessary to master the weapon paired with an effective build. By “effective build,” I do not refer to anything even resembling the typical (for unorganized sPvP) and easily-countered, high water, super-high arcane builds.

That is not to say that the staff is useful all of the time, in every situation, against every team design. A good sPvP elementalist needs to know when to switch to a different weapon/build to beat a particular organized team. However, most organized teams run with staff elementalists by default because a staff elementalist can do better what most classes simply cannot do (i.e., lay down large AoE for heavy damage and some control—-essential for taking points from organized players).

I can agree with this. When I sPvP with staff I often find myself wishing that my team was organized. If I knew where group fights were going to take place I could get into position much easier.

I find hotjoin sPvP is more difficult because you have to rely on your team picking the correct points/portions of the map to stage these group fights. Assuming your team knows how many players to send where and when, you still have to guess where the fights are going to occur. Being in position prior to the fight is a huge advantage as opposed to trying to navigate through the battle.

I worry about tPvP because it seems like 5v5 doesn’t facilitate enough group fights to merit the use of staff. As for being focused into a 1v1, I have yet to discover how to be anything more than useless.

I’d love to find some recent footage of staff being used in tPvP/1v1 to any degree of effectiveness.

Give us a weapon swap or give us a staff that is capable of 1v1.

So randomly I can no longer right click anything in game. I can still hold right click to control camera but I can’t select anything.

I’ve tried both restarting the client and running as admin, neither worked.

Help!

EDIT: I guess this is being fixed

I like the concept. I wikitten would deal top damage every tick instead of building up though. The target could dodge roll out of it to break the beam causing a cooldown for however much time you had left in the channel. If that’s OP then maybe just speed up the rate of the ticks so they hit faster. I do like the animation.

I think elementalist would benefit the most from these changes.

Stone shards has very low direct damage and I was seeing some 1k+ hits from warrior in your vid. However, direct damage is not the goal with a bleed build so I have to say that Ele will benefit the most from individual bleed stacks if we get them. I also like Ele running the bleed build more because you can kite with it.

When I set up signets in Heart of the Mists and enter a hotjoin that is already in progress none of my signet passives are taking effect.

To get around this I have to swap in a different skill and then swap back to the signet. If I die and respawn the signet passive works fine. Also, if I join a game that has not yet started and I’m present for the cooldown reset my signet passives will work.

There is no problem for the rest of the match or the following matches once I do this work-around. I’m pretty sure this is not intentional. Has anyone else experienced this?

Chaith.8256:

Whelp, for being ‘useless’, it sure helping your mobility a lot still, innit? Elementalist is still in the top tier of mobility rating among all the professions.

The reason for the change was primarily PvP/WvW. Too much abuse to.. well, never die, ever. You get the good cooldown rate when you use it as a gap closer – you get punished when you use it to zap to a node or cheat death.

It was totally warranted, whether or not it makes you sad that your favourite weapon was nerfed.

**Also punished while using it to move across maps in PvE, where we all know cheating death can be done without RtL.

Traits
0/20/0/20/30
Air III, VIII
Water I, V
Arcana V, VIII, XI

Gear
Berserker armor and weapon
5/6 runes of the soldier, 1/6 rune of divinity
Sigil of battle
Cleric trinkets w/sapphire jewels

Food
Chocolate Omnomberry Cream

Skills
Glyph of Elemental Harmony
Glyph of Storms
Arcane Wave
Glyph of Lesser Elementals
Glyph of Elementals

Unbuffed Stats
2.7k attack
32% crit chance
47% crit damage
2.2k armor
14.5k health

For me, this is the strongest build for general PvE I’ve ever been able to run on Ele. Using this with staff, I’ve had more success than any other weapon set. I find that it is a good balance between dps, health and healing power. It’s quick around the map because perma swiftness is very easy—air 4 -> glyph heal. Your food buff will leave you at 50% total boon duration and 40% magic find (you’ll always be under a boon). Your fire elementals come out during difficult fights and that gives you a nice dps boost.

Leo G.4501:

It seems to me, if you get sufficient buffs from standing in your AoEs, it just turns staff into a melee weapon. You get max advantage by running to your enemies and cycling AoEs while dancing inside.

Yeah, you can still shoot at range until foes get close, but you’re simply waiting until they get close, not actively trying to keep them at bay.

I agree with you on both parts here and I think we’re actually aiming for the same goal. I’d love to have a staff that could actively keep my opponent at range but right now staff does not do that well enough. I wouldn’t make the buffs so strong that we would be better off charging in and trying to face tank Warriors—but if played right, we should be able to soften melee players from a distance and then stand toe-to-toe with them when they close in.

Staff Ele already has what it takes to do good damage from long distances but we don’t have anything that we can use once the enemy closes in on us.

I suppose the method behind the suggestion is to provide a very subtle change that ANet could implement without completely re-working the weapon set. The way things are going, it feels like ANet is trying to nerf everything into balance (which I believe would work given enough time/patches) but I have a hunch that staff Ele is pretty far down on the list of balance priorities.

Leo G.4501:

This would affect Staff elementalist more because they’d have far more combo fields at their disposal.

You’re right, and your suggestion would certainly provide more benefit. However, we have to consider where staff is already good—providing long distance DPS, support and combo fields. Wouldn’t adding more utility/debuffs to this aspect of play make us OP? There’s already talk of an incoming AoE nerf.

My thinking was only to find a way to make staff work better in melee combat because that is where it suffers. You can’t 1v1 against a competent player and stay at range, they will close on you and we don’t have enough gap creators. Staff will never be the weapon of choice for 1vX but we shouldn’t be a free kill either.

Of course this mechanic won’t help much if your opponent stays at range—but think about it, they’d be at range which where we want them as a staff Ele.

Shikron.1243:

I’d be cool with this, but vitality buff for water attune? Maybe something a bit more helpful… healing power or something

I was considering healing power but then I thought it would be easy to spec that into being OP unless the buff was very small. We have 4 AoE circles in water attunement, 2 of them heals. Match that up with evasive arcana + blast finishers and you could have a lot of burst healing on relatively low cooldowns.

A solution could be for the mechanic to only apply to combo fields. We would lose the buffs from meteor shower, eruption and ice spike but that may not be much of an issue.

I think our AoEs being “good for us, bad for them” adds more dimension to staff play style—would love to see something like this.

Staff Ele should be able to stand in its own AoE circles and get buffed. I’m not talking about combo fields, I’m saying it should happen passively as well. It should be only for us, not our allies.

Fire: increases power
Water: increases vitality
Air: grants quickness (yes, static field should apply quickness through its duration)
Earth: increases toughness

As far as the exact values go, they need to be noticeable and benefit us enough that we can build strategies around them.

If you leave your AoE (willingly or by force), the buff ends immediately. You cannot regain the buff by reentering your AoE. If you are in your AoE when it ends, the buff lasts +4 seconds after the AoE has expired (except for quickness which will end when Static Field does). The buff will not stack (neither intensity nor duration), i.e. if you use lava font to buff, meteor shower will not stack the buff—it will only extend the duration until +4 seconds after meteor shower ends.

Staff needs something like this to make it more effective in close-quarters 1vX. We can’t swap weapons in combat and nearly any situation that first invites staff can quickly evolve into a situation that staff isn’t meant for.

Ralathar.7236:

Though again, if you are talking small scale staff is not built for that and if you are talking sPVP countless builds are left in the cold.

But lets look at your scenario, you think that a single player doing 1/5th of the hp of 20 is BAD? WTF? That means 5 would utterly wipe 20. The problem of no AOE caps is apparent in your very example, because no AOE caps would lower that number to 1-2 people to wipe 20.

These are the parts that I don’t understand. We’re being told that staff is built for large scale combat. We don’t have a weapon swap. Our AoE is limited to 5 players. So our weapon that is designed to specialize in large battles is in fact limited to large battles of 5 or less opponents.

Being able to take on a zerg is not what most players are looking for in my opinion. My biggest issue with staff is that I can’t use it unless I know ahead of time that I’m not going to be involved in 1v1 or 1vX. I can’t setup trait lines that would work with staff but not d/d or s/d because I may have to swap and re-trait while in the field.

If you try to solo roam with staff and you are caught by a solo roaming specialist, you are dead. If you are a solo roaming specialist involved in a group fight where there is a staff Ele (who supposedly specializes in group combat), you close gap and 1v1 them. That’s a big problem.

IMO, it’s as simple as this: IF we are being locked into a weapon/trait set THEN that weapon/trait set should be able to manage all facets of play, including 1v1. Don’t give us a circumstantial weapon and no weapon swap.

I agree. Not sure where versatility comes from when we’re locked out of our attunements for so much time.

KazNaka.4718:

have you tried this with rabid gear for more toughness and precision? You could swap out corruption sigil after getting 25 stacks for sigil of earth to utilize your crit %.

I’d also mention you have, in terms of bleeding, 20% (serrated stones) + 10% (agony sigil) + 20% (20 fire) + 60% (runes) + 40% (food) = 150%, which is 50% over the cap. So I could suggest keeping the food but changing to Runes of the Undead (if you’re going rabid) for higher condition damage.

Runes: 45%
Sigil: 10%
Fire Line: 20%
Earth VIII: 20%
Food: 40%
—————————-
Bleed duration= 135%

An excellent point, I overlooked the bleed duration cap. I agree, the best thing to do is to take out the bleed duration runes and put in runes of the undead. This will give +toughness and +condition damage. You’ll be at 90% bleed duration, which is adequate. In sPvP you can leave your bleed duration runes in and still be under the cap because there is no food buffs.

as was mentioned above, you could also swap in Geomancer’s Alacrity in place of Serrated stones but you will still be 15% over the cap and if you swap out bleed duration runes for runes of the undead you will be at 70%—too low for my liking.

It takes some time for your damage to ramp up, I find that Carrion’s +vitality is often necessary to stay alive long enough to down your target.

Xaos.3257:

btw how long is there the signet of restoration bug with the cool down
to stay at 25 sec even with the signet mastery ? They will fix it soon?

This appears to only be in sPvP, I think they nerfed the passive on signet of restoration for sPvP—hopefully it’s only a bug and not part of the nerfs.

Swimsasa Stoon.8936:

it is an interesting change however the casting time of signets is so horendeuos that the perma swiftness is kinda…. not working well with everything else.
I prefer the 2 air traits that reduce glyph recharge and let glyphs give boons based on atunement (air = swiftness) equip glyph of elemental harmony and you get perma swiftness with low cooldown one spell cast away. You can reïnforce it with any other glyph except for the elite glyph for some reason it doesn’t work.

Another point is why don’t you use Fiery Greatsword? It increases both power and condition damage has ranged attacks and a good burn plus and AoE which you lack when you’re running S/F.

Also why don’t you use Geomancer’s Alacrity for 20% lower CD on earth atunement skills which’ll give you more invulnerability and blinds and reflection… I mean y’r gonna stay in earth atunement anyways.
Also burning precision is better than burning fire since you’ll get off burns consistently proccing the 5% more dmg on burning targets.

You’re right, signet swiftness isn’t something you want to use unless you know you’re not going to be in combat. I prefer the Elemental over FGS because FGS takes you out of your defenses. I like to have the tank that you get from Earth Elemental (recently buffed as well) when facing multiple targets. I agree, FGS is certainly better in several situations (vs. structures, vs. other players, mobility, etc.) so there would be no harm in using it over the Elemental.

I don’t take Geomancer’s Alacrity because usually the target doesn’t outlive my defensive abilities. The only ability that has a cooldown over 30s is Obsidian Flesh, and it’s already 25s lower than Mist Form. Also, when facing another player your defensive skills are generally better and still on lower cooldowns than theirs. If you did choose to take it, I would swap it in over Serrated Stones. I like Serrated Stones because having long bleeds can get you a rally if you’re downed.

I left out Burning Precision because I can maintain a permanent burn on the target with signet of fire, also the base damage on stone shards is so low that you won’t see much benefit from an added +5% (this percentage only applies to the base damage, not the bleed).

DallasisaLeo.1584:

I didn’t so much gasp as make this face :-\

haha yeah I know—that was my expression while trying to find a way to bring in Arcana without making it a slow and weak version of a good S/D build.

GW2 Forumers,

The Earth Troll

2.7k armor
18.4k health
2.7k attack
1.7k condition damage
__________________________
Traits
20/10/30/10/0

II Burning Fire
IX Fire’s Embrace

I Zephyr’s Boon

II Signet Mastery
VIII Serrated Stones
XII Written in Stone

II Shard of Ice
—
Gear
Full Carrion, including trinkets /w chrysocolas
6x runes of the undead
sigils of corruption & agony

Consumables
Rare Veggie Pizza, Master Tuning Crystal
—
Skills
Ether Renewal
Signet of Fire
Signet of Air -or- Water
Signet of Earth
Glyph of Elementals
__________________________

Numbers to Consider:

Offensive:
no CD | stone shards- 10.5s bleed 3.8k | 900 range
16s CD | signet of fire- 17.25s burn 10.7k | 1200 range
3 11s stacks of vulnerability per signet cast

CC/Defensive:
16s CD | signet of air- 8s blind | 1200 range
24s CD | signet of water- 6.5s chill | 1200 range
24s CD | signet of earth- 4.75s immobilize | 1200 range
15s CD | dust devil- 16s AoE blind | 900 range
no CD | rock barrier (don’t hurl)- +250 toughness
50s CD | obsidian flesh- 4s invulnerability that you can heal through
25s CD | magnetic wave- 3 condition cures, 3s reflect

signets fire -> air -> earth = perma swiftness
__

Your conditions last a very long time, cover conditions are almost always readily available and you have a lot of useful skills on low CDs.

This is not an original build, players have been doing stuff like this since launch. I posted this build before but I never made a thread for it and I’ve since changed it for the better. It’s not the new meta, it’s just something fun that was buffed a bit on the 4/30 patch. It’s also a (mostly) boonless build so it may not suffer as much from recent boon hate.

The Earth Troll never leaves earth attunement, gasp. Try it out—it’s an interesting change of pace and surprisingly effective.
______________________________________

EDIT: I made a small change here; dropped 10 points out of Fire and into Water so that I could eliminate the mostly useless trait III Ember’s Might and take the trait II Shard of Ice—this will give you yet another cover condition on every signet while also providing some indirect group support (+% damage taken from everyone in your group). The +vitality & healing power is also nice, while the -10% condition duration is a marginal loss.

EDIT 2: Bleed duration runes are not necessary in PvE if you are running everything else because you will in fact be 35% over the bleed duration cap. I took out bleed duration runes and put in 6/6 runes of the undead for +toughness +condition damage. This leaves us at 90% bleed duration which is good.

If we’re discussing sPvP, you can certainly use staff and be very effective with it—you just need to know when and where to use what. In sPvP, players have a tendency to zerg down each point, these group fights are treasure troves of glory for a staff ele. You need good positioning. Your AoEs can tag 5 players and with the amount of pressure/CC you can throw down, your team will rarely lose these encounters. Perma swiftness is easy with staff, so you can also capture points quickly.

Staff gets a bad rap because it’s very difficult to 1v1—this is true but you don’t always have to 1v1 roam to win an sPvP match. Also, the skills aren’t usually harmonious enough to develop a rotation that uses everything off CD. From my experience, staff is all about knowing where you can be effective—not all weapons are designed for dueling or bunkering a 1vX.

As for builds, I outlined the setup that I run for almost everything (PvE, sPvP, WvW) here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/PVE-Dugeon-Staff/first#post1972678

Hope this helps!

I outlined the staff setup that I use here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/PVE-Dugeon-Staff

However, if you are looking for survival and versatility then you’ll probably fare better with D/D—see daphoenix’s guide:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/Guide-Mastering-the-D-D-ele-3-29-12/first

I run staff like this:

0/20/0/20/30
Air III, VIII
Water I, V
Arcana V, VIII, XI

Armor: Full Berserkers, 5x runes of the soldier, 1x rune of divinity
Weapon: Berserker, sigil of battle
Trinkets: Full Clerics

Food: Omnomberry Cookie

Heal: Glyph of Elemental Harmony

Utility-
Glyph of Storms
Glyph of Elemental Power
Glyph of Lesser Elementals

Elite-
Glyph of Elementals

I like this setup because you get a good balance of HP, damage, armor and healing power.

You have 1-touch perma swiftness with Glyph of Elemental Harmony and you can stack swiftness nicely with Air 4 + Glyph OEH.

For difficult fights, bring out both of your Elementals while in fire attunement and you’ll see nice sustained damage. Glyph of Storms is also a very nice supplement to your damage.

You also have 700+ healing power and reduced cooldowns on your heals so your support is excellent.

The biggest weaknesses are your lack of stun-breakers and the general slow cast-times of staff. I prefer offensive utility because I’m always going to try and out-range my opponent. In my opinion, a close-quarters 1v1 is always going to be difficult for a Staff Ele, regardless of build. Be careful with your positioning before fights—I’ve found that using terrain to your advantage is more important on staff than on other weapon sets.

I once tried to bring cantrips into this build but I’m lacking some of the traits that make cantrips good and I can’t seem to slot them without a noticeable reduction in damage output. If you choose to bring in a defensive utility, I suggest taking out Glyph of Elemental Power. Hope this helps!

Edit: I’ve been running Arcane Wave in place of Glyph of Elemental Power and I find that I like it better because it’s a very nice 30 second blast finisher

Blaine Tog.8304:

…ANet has been intentionally trying to slow down combat but nothing is worse for a super-squishy burst spec than being made to slow down.

Your entire post is very well said. It appears many of Ele’s difficulties are fundamental in nature.

Smooth Marc.8743:

By dps ele i mean scepter/dagger or dagger/dagger.Weapon skill healing,healing ripple ,soothing mist,regen and self healing is more than enough to keep you alive in a 1v1 fight

Right, sorry I was referring to OP—should have quoted.

Epic.3950:

If you want to be an ele then start applying conditions and killing your opponent.

You’re sure your Ele is in fact an Ele and not a Necro right?

Explain how a DPS oriented staff Ele is supposed to facetank multiple opponents. Don’t make the mistake of generalizing everything into bunker D/D.

Could not have said it better. Such a simple idea that would open many possibilities.

3. Insert (trait maybe?) a way for the passive to remain active when you use the heal.

I think the Earth trait Written in Stone already does this, could be wrong though. I’m not a big user of Sig Restoration but I like your ideas!

Dragsooth.4071:

I absolutely hate playing my staff Ele now after 1000+ of enjoying it. I had to spec into major PVT armor and defensive traits and STILL get my kitten handed to me because I can’t take a hit. Now with Mist Form nerfed, I might as well be in full beserker without the damage.

Ah yes, I feel your pain. I put 5/6 soldier and 1/6 divinity runes in my berserker armor to help beef up my HP and defense. Also, with full cleric trinkets you can replenish your health pool very easily. It’s definitely not a tank but I feel with proper distance I have enough tools to get out of combat or re-position myself.

I went back and forth on sacrificing the boon duration for the VT runes but I really didn’t want to put PVT armor on a build where I should be at range to begin with. I love it because while it isn’t totally faceroll 24/7, I have the mobility and dependability I need to put myself in good situations where I will be the most potent (i.e. standing on a cliff raining dps and support onto a team fight).

Edit: While I don’t use it, Arcane Shield is a bland alternative to the former Mist Form. You get 5 seconds (or 3 hits) to pop your heal safely. It doesn’t have a stun breaker though either.

emikochan.8504:

ah baunx thats the build i leveled with, might be fun to go back to it :p

Definitely would be worth trying out again, as you know this build highlights some of the few areas where we actually got buffs on 4/30.

I ran something like this and it rocked single target. I just can’t find anywhere in the game that is only single target.

360+ hours on my Ele and I wasn’t having fun even before the 4/30 nerfs. Bunker didn’t appeal to me. Who was I to think that a cloth-wearing profession with the lowest base hp in the game wasn’t a bunker?

Anyway, I’ve been working on a glyph build for staff and I’ve been having a lot of fun with it so far.

0/20/0/20/30
III, VIII
I, V
V, VIII, XI

Basically I’m traited so I have 1-touch perma-swiftness using Inscription. No boon duration runes, I run 5/6 soldier 1/6 divinity on berserker gear with cleric trinkets. 16k hp with 2300 defense, not the best but I don’t get one-shotted. I have the damage I need for solo play and the support I need for groups.

I get nice AoE from glyph of storms and I can solo difficult fights with my 2 elementals. Glyph of Elemental Power offers a unique strategic flavor to my encounters—I need to choose which condition will be most beneficial.

Anyway, what I like about it is I can perform very well in PvE, sPvP and WvW and I never have to re-trait. And the 1-touch perma-swiftness is super nice. So far it’s kind of like a do-everything Ele build.

I think the 4/30 nerfs were aimed at top-tier Ele players. Casual players just have to deal with the collateral damage.

Thanks so much for your response, the Ranger certainly seems like it has very unique gameplay mechanics. I’ll have to give it a try and see if it’s for me!

Hello Rangers,

I’m ~360 hours in on my Elementalist and I feel that it is time to move on. I first took Ele because I wanted some form of reliable ranged dps. Turns out I didn’t do my homework on the Ele.

Is top-tier ranged dps something I can expect from a Ranger or am I misinterpreting the class? Are the current meta builds focused on ranged combat? I’m looking for something solid and reliable. My hope is that I can find a ranged build that will allow me to play solo but also provide some support for groups, even if it is indirect support.

All advice is greatly appreciated!

The GW2 community will not stop being unconstructive if a dev answers a constructive post. I think that is the nature of the community of a non-subscription game. If I was a dev I would avoid getting into a debate in these forums at all costs.

They are obviously addresing issues and, with few exceptions, we clearly understand exactly why they have done what they have done without explanation. I don’t need to hear them say it.

Yeah it’s stupid for a player (me) to imply that the devs are doing something wrong because a player (me) is so far removed from their process. So I struck that nonsense.

I’ll bring in a conjured weapon in certain situations. How often you bring them depends on how much your build is able to sacrifice a utility slot for one. I don’t build around them because I feel that exchanging 20 skills for 5 is not worth it, not to mention it’s hard to find a way to slot them instead cantrips or other utilities.

Citadel of Flame path 2 is an example where conjured frost bow is very useful. It does a lot of damage against the Eternal Flame and if you are running D/D then it is also your most accessible source of damage in that particular situation.

I don’t feel that they are gimmicky but I do think they are specialized weapons for special situations.

I have about 350 hours on my Ele and I don’t feel very effective at all. I’ll keep searching for advice and ideas on how to play better but sometimes it feels like we are at a disadvantage unless we are only playing bunker.

Good ideas. You’re right we can’t expect devs to be on the forums all the time—they have a lot to do already. I just think it’s difficult for players to provide good input when they don’t know much about what the devs want for the class. Maybe player-feedback isn’t needed right now? I just thought that was part of the point of an official forum.

Since 4/30 went live this forum has turned into a jumbled wall of complaints. Major nerfs inspire that kind of reaction, it’s to be expected.

What’s not to be expected is what came before 4/30:

Multiple players authoring posts that provided a wealth of constructive criticism which was then discussed in a constructive manner by other players on the threads. These posts then getting buried further and further away from the front page.

I believe that the Devs know exactly what they’re doing, it’s their game. Even if it takes some excessive nerfs to test the waters, it’s all part of their process. They have a goal of what they want the game to be and since they have developed it to where it is, they should be respectfully deferred to.

ANet, while good at developing a game, is bad at this profession’s forum. Good player’s have provided so much input and have been given nothing in return. Nerfing and buffing every time someone makes a suggestion is not the point.

The point is to communicate with your player base when they are being constructive so that you don’t have to delete their posts when they become non-constructive.

No one is asking the Devs to hop on and respond every time a player makes a post, but this forum has been given nothing lately and now all we’re left with is the QQ.

If a Dev reads this and decides to respond, do it here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/elementalist/staff-fixes-improvements/first

^this is just one of the many good threads that have been ignored off of the front page time and time again. If ANet can’t grace the constructive feedback with their presence, this forum loses its ability to do what it is meant to do and becomes a QQfest.

Sounds like you have D/D covered, if you have further questions on that front I’d refer you to daphoenix’s guide—that one is a genius.

My experience with S/D is such that I’ve had the most success running the 0/10/0/30/30, just swapping in scepter MH. Scepter toned down the pace a bit for me because you have more range and can afford to be slower in your decision making. Scepter’s major limitation for me is that it’s pretty much entirely single target.

Staff is a whole different ball game from D/D and S/D. Again, I ran 0/10/0/30/30 (or slight variations). With staff, you can only be so fast before your cast times start holding you back. Since you will be very much limited in your ability to react to combat, I advise that you pre-plan your battles as best as you can (find vantage points, etc.) and you have to think a few moves ahead. You will also need to know when to retreat and do so much sooner than you would on D/D because staff has no escapes. Your best hope for getting away is the CC you have in Frozen Ground, Static Field and Unsteady Ground.

Staff needs work because this strategy only gets you so far, GW2 combat is hugely reactive and the slow cast times + attunement swap cooldowns often prevent you from performing at your highest level in a 1v1 setting.

The common theme among all weapon sets is attunement swapping. The best advice I can give is learn to do it quickly (as quickly as the slow swap cooldowns will allow) and try to memorize all of your skills. It’s tempting to blow through everything off CD because once you leave attunement, you’re locked out for 9+ seconds, however the best players seem to save specific skills for specific times.

As far as mentality, I think one of my bad habits as an Ele is I try to work too fast. It’s an easy trap to fall into because being so squishy can cause you to be a little frantic. Take your time to learn the properties of all of your tools and the situations for which they are best called upon.

I haven’t yet commented but this is probably my favorite thread. If I could could get a dev to post on any recent thread, it would be this one. This needs more attention than it’s getting.

Myself and many others rolled Elementalist for the staff. That said, I really enjoyed seeing D/D at it’s peak and I felt like this was our build for solo play. With the recent nerfs I feel like the devs are trying to send a message that the bunker D/D is more exploit than build, which I think is ridiculous. There are a lot of players who claim to be able to beat the D/D pre-nerf, my opinion is that if it can be beaten by a balanced build, then it too is a balanced build.

However, this is about staff. I don’t believe that staff was created as a group-only weapon. This is because with some very minor tweaks (OP’s suggestions) you could run solo as effectively as anything else in the game. I can’t understand why such a brilliant weapon set has fallen so flat in so many situations.

My opinion on the 4/30 nerfs:

They say that Elementalist has a high skill cap. If players begin to reach that skill cap they should look overpowered. It takes a lot to run an Ele successfully, but when players do it they should be able to take down every profession under their own skill cap with ease.

It’s silly to take a profession that is difficult to master and put it on the same level as one that is easy to master.

If X Profession must be equal in power to B Profession then both professions must also be equal in skill cap. There is no point in mastering a higher skill cap if the reward is not also higher. Unless you just enjoy APM

Using 0/10/0/30/30:

I run Berserker gear & weapon with Cleric’s accessories. I have 5x Superior runes of the Soldier and 1x Superior rune of Divinity. This puts me at a little over 16k health and my balance of damage/healing/toughness feels right for me.

Personally, as a staff Ele I do everything I can to stay at range. This includes proper positioning and planning before battles. I find that this weapon offers so much support that I can’t pass up using full Clerics accessories. 700+ healing power is also nice to have when I slip up and take damage. It also adds toughness, which is not something I’m traited into.

There are a lot more staff Eles on these forums that are more experienced than me, but I feel that staff is in a place right now where you have to run what feels right for what you are good at. If you are exceptional at evading and not taking hits, add more Berserker. If you find yourself getting downed all the time or you feel like you aren’t providing enough support in groups, add more PTV and Cleric.

I wish that staff had a build that provided synergies on the same level of D/D, but I haven’t found one.

TL;DR at bottom

Basically, I’m trying to get an idea of how individual players feel about their staff. I think the community has established its strengths in WvW and its downfalls in 1v1. Try and be specific. For example, if you are exclusively a staff Ele then share your experience! PvE, sPvP, WvW, tPvP; all is welcome. Also, if you played staff and found it underwhelming (oh boy) then tell us what you didn’t like about it. Talk about your success with staff.

As tempting as it is, let’s try not to turn this thread into a suggestion box for ANet—there’s already enough of that around and more of it would be redundant.

Personally, I’ve found staff successful in dungeons and unorganized PvP. My experience is that you have to know the map and establish vantage points. I feel that staff gives you a form of “third party control” over fights, that is, your team could be outplayed on the ground but still win the fight because of your influence on multiple targets with large AoE.

I haven’t yet learned how to solo PvE effectively with staff, so advice is helpful. Also, I believe staff encourages retreat from a 1v1 or 1vX situation because of the amount of AoE CC we have. My technique involves trying to anticipate what I’m getting into and finding locations that work to my advantage. I haven’t done much with S/D, but I run D/D and I find that it is more APM intensive but requires less pre-planning and more rhythm.

TL;DR
Where and how do you use staff? Even if it just decorates your inventory, tell me. What’s your technique? Are you successful or not? I’m interested in all of this because I resist the idea that an entire weapon set was developed for a singular role.

Secondly, structures can’t be critted.
…
And yes, spiking to 25 bleeds is generally desirable because it rarely if ever prevents the ability to maintain a stable group of bleed stacks regardless, and 5 more stacks would be 20% more damage for that time. But if you can hit 25 permanent stacks… even better.

Structures right, thank you for the correction. Also thanks for the clarification on bleeds.

That’s pretty much exactly how I run only I don’t use glyphs because I feel that my single target damage ramps up pretty slow and I need the burn/CC that running 3 signets provides. I also eat Rare Veggie Pizza for +condition damage and +40% condition duration.

A lot of players will look at a bleed build and point out that it is ineffective in dungeons & against champions where there are other players attacking the target. This is because bleeds hit the cap very fast and it rules out your major damage source. This problem has not been happening to me much because I think a lot of players know about that limitation and therefore don’t run bleed intensive builds in those situations.

However, there is an answer to the bleed limitation for when it does happen. This answer also applies to the question of how can we damage structures. All I do is slot Arcane Power in place of signet of air or signet of water (whichever you are running). This ability allows your next 5 attacks to crit. Come up with a nice burst rotation that allows you to hit 5 high damage skills in a row. This is where having 3 other attunements comes in to play. Pop it and go through your burst rotation when bleeds are capped or when you are facing a structure.

When bleed damage is discussed I hear a lot of players referring to the ability to stack 25 bleeds as the most desirable goal of a bleed build. I have a question here.

Is it better to hit a stack of 25 for a small amount of time (say 4-5 seconds) or to be able to maintain a stack of 20 permanently with a 12 second bleed duration and zero cooldown?

I agree. I also think the sound effect for stone shards is weird. Would you mind posting your build? I’m very interested because I also run an S/F Earth build. I’d love to see what you and I do differently. I’ve often thought of this build as the only way to produce good single target damage as well as durability.

I like your concept, very nice. I tried for a long time to make a build like this work, only I went a different direction.

My setup was 30/0/30/10/0 because I found that maxing earth and fire gave me +condition damage, duration, and +toughness. I used full Carrion with 2x afflicted, 2x centaur, and 2x krait. With fancy veggie pizza it was hitting ~4k per auto attack with stone shards.

I ran ether renewal, signets of fire, water and earth. Signet of fire had perma burn for ~8k and I was traited to maintain signet passives which is nice for the extra condition removal and toughness from signets of water and earth. Signets of water and earth gave me some good CC because 30 in fire extended their duration.

Anyway, I sat at ~18k health and a ton of toughness. Stacked 20 bleeds with just stone shards, perma burn & CC with signets. This was the only build I could develop that allowed Ele to take hits and still have some DPS in the form of DoT.

I didn’t see much incentive to put points in Arcana because there wasn’t much reason to leave earth attunement, except on structures. Carrion does give you nice power for when you need to use it.

That’s just a quick summary of how I did it, I won’t get further into it because I find that mine just didn’t really work out. The problem that I could never resolve was that my setup was entirely limited to single target. There are far too many situations where single target DoT is just not sufficient for a conditions build.

I’d love to run it though, so if you find that your build works out after testing please let us know!

Awesome feedback thanks guys!

Armor, weapons, accessories, everything. We have so many heals. Is it something that should be used?

The build in question is the cookie cutter 0/10/0/30/30 cantrips bunker.

Let me know what you guys think, share your experiences with what works for you and what doesn’t and in which situations.

Thanks!