Staff is still bad in sPvP

We all know this folks, but looks like anything done in the last balance patch actually changed this situation.I don't know what happens with staff damage because it's pretty slow and heavily reliant on combos (like soft CC). All classes can cleanse conditions pretty easily and have viable disengage options that will get them out of our fields. Take frozen ground as an example. It applies very little chill (in terms of duration) and despite the big radius it still can be easily avoided. Most of our hard CC skills and they are Gust, Unsteady Ground and Pile Driver if you're weaver have long channels. Very long channels. Many professions can apply reasonable stacks of stability in order to avoid being CCed. When they don't have good cleansing or disengagement skills they simply have tons of resistance uptime. If we roll a zerker staff ele we are just asking to be ridiculed and bashed forever coupled with the most toxic comments and mails. But we can't roll anything else if we plan to play power staff because Marauder's Amulet doesn't give us enough damage to tackle opponents down since our staff's damage is slow we need to deal big numbers in order to compensate our slowness. But if we do that we become extremely vulnerable, to almost everything. If I use my three utility slots for defensive measures I will lack dps output because again, staff's dps is slow. Lava Font is slow. Our health pool is the smallest. Our Armor Rating is the lowest. There isn't a single ele build that doesn't require either Arcana or Water in order to be successful. It's disappointing. And I'm almost sure that when the next balance patch hits, staff ele will still remain the same thing.

@ArenaNet

One day I went scholar zerk and saw an enemy firebrand (plus whoever was next to him) survive a full meteor shower + lavafont + fireballs and other aoes on top. I think I also threw glyph of storms for good measure. I had a teammate or 2 in the fight, not one enemy got downed.

That's when I realized that no matter the build, staff will forever remain useless in the current state of pvp.

To be honest, its a good thing that staff is useless in PvP, gives Eles a chance to use a different weapon combo, Staff is already used in PvE and WvW I'd like to see Sw/D Weaver become viable which i think its close to be viable if it wern't for certain classes right now

staff is balanced around AOE, AOE can never be effective in small group pvp because smalll group pvp is often 1v1 and 1vx. If a class was competitive as aoe and single dps then it would be GROSSLY overpowered. Staff is not the tool for spvp, its designed for hitting large groups that dont instantly burn you down, i.e zergs and pve.

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:staff is balanced around AOE, AOE can never be effective in small group pvp because smalll group pvp is often 1v1 and 1vx. If a class was competitive as aoe and single dps then it would be GROSSLY overpowered. Staff is not the tool for spvp, its designed for hitting large groups that dont instantly burn you down, i.e zergs and pve.

What?... You honestly think small group pvp is 1v1/1vx oriented? Anyway, plenty classes/ builds in pvp are AoE based.

@Poelala.2830 said:

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:staff is balanced around AOE, AOE can never be effective in small group pvp because smalll group pvp is often 1v1 and 1vx. If a class was competitive as aoe and single dps then it would be GROSSLY overpowered. Staff is not the tool for spvp, its designed for hitting large groups that dont instantly burn you down, i.e zergs and pve.

Yeah. AoEs are effective in 1vX and small scale pvp. Take Lava Font for example: it damages up to 5 people. How is it not designed for small scale pvp?

@Guizao.4167 said:

@Poelala.2830 said:

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:staff is balanced around AOE, AOE can never be effective in small group pvp because smalll group pvp is often 1v1 and 1vx. If a class was competitive as aoe and single dps then it would be GROSSLY overpowered. Staff is not the tool for spvp, its designed for hitting large groups that dont instantly burn you down, i.e zergs and pve.

Cause you need to stand on it for a moment to actually feel it's dps...and nobody below gold will do that. That's the main problem of staff skills - you cast some skills and you need to wait till they do job if somebody will stay in aoe's more then 2-3s.

But if lava front didn't have pulses and did damage instantly...that would be fun.

@Poelala.2830 said:

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:staff is balanced around AOE, AOE can never be effective in small group pvp because smalll group pvp is often 1v1 and 1vx. If a class was competitive as aoe and single dps then it would be GROSSLY overpowered. Staff is not the tool for spvp, its designed for hitting large groups that dont instantly burn you down, i.e zergs and pve.

um yes, being able to hold your own at a capture point is absolutely critical - you can check any strategy guide for capture the point if you really don't understand this. x versus x is ofc a given. What doesn't happen in reality is that an enemy will allow a weak aoer to simply stand and blast the fields with impunity, and i'm talking about staff ele here. You often see pvers trying to do this (they think bursty is good) and wondering why their win average overall is down.

What can a staff PVPer do?

Sustain - no1v1 - no1v2 no2v2, your the target and will get bursted down. No.1vx, only if the enemy decide to ignore youhold point - no

staff pvp is basically a selfish build that's more about seeing pretty numbers (e.g imagining in a 10 minute fight that players will constantly ignore the aoer and at the same time spend their time simply standing in a laval font etc)

put it this way, your any other class, and you see a staff ele - what would your first thought be? mines would be run over and kick his face in to stop him aoeing and get a quick free kill - its a no brainer.

yeah staff is garbage. I still play it because it's fun. but yeah. utter garbage. but that is what happens when u don't buff shit along with HoT/PoF or don't nerf shit to core levels.

Why do u think berserker was garbage in HoT? Because adrenal health was still at core game level.

Why don't u see any core classes aside from thief, guardian,warrior and ele and ranger? but no core revenant, core mesmer,core engi and core necro? because the classes are still set at core gw2 powerlevel.

@Mr Godlike.6098 said:

@Guizao.4167 said:

@Poelala.2830 said:

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:staff is balanced around AOE, AOE can never be effective in small group pvp because smalll group pvp is often 1v1 and 1vx. If a class was competitive as aoe and single dps then it would be GROSSLY overpowered. Staff is not the tool for spvp, its designed for hitting large groups that dont instantly burn you down, i.e zergs and pve.

I'd love to see this implemented. I've been asking for this change since like forever but nothing has happened yet.

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:put it this way, your any other class, and you see a staff ele - what would your first thought be? mines would be run over and kick his face in to stop him aoeing and get a quick free kill - its a no brainer.

People who does that to me when I play ranked usually have a real bad time ;)

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:

@Poelala.2830 said:

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:staff is balanced around AOE, AOE can never be effective in small group pvp because smalll group pvp is often 1v1 and 1vx. If a class was competitive as aoe and single dps then it would be GROSSLY overpowered. Staff is not the tool for spvp, its designed for hitting large groups that dont instantly burn you down, i.e zergs and pve.

I always make them consume their dodges and cleanses before I start some offensive engagement. Since I'm playing weaver I start a fight attuned to Water + Earth, cast Ice Spike and Lahar then change to Earth + Water and cast Frozen Ground while maintaining some distance from my target(s). Then I cast Eruption while changin' to Fire to stack might.

Dunno, I just had a match with a Staff Ele in my team and he was wrecking the enemy Scourges (2 of them ofc), the staff heals are powerful and so is it's dmg output, I often got surprised by how fast the enemies dropped before me. It seems to be working in certain match ups.

It's basically alright if the enemy team doesn't hard target you, but you are easily shut down when being focused.

@MikeL.8260 said:Dunno, I just had a match with a Staff Ele in my team and he was wrecking the enemy Scourges (2 of them ofc), the staff heals are powerful and so is it's dmg output, I often got surprised by how fast the enemies dropped before me. It seems to be working in certain match ups.

I also do the same but the cooldowns are cruel to the point that I either have to keep casting lava font and hope it hits someone or spam my AAs. And if I get focused, it's an insta-death

@vesica tempestas.1563 said:staff is balanced around AOE, AOE can never be effective in small group pvp because smalll group pvp is often 1v1 and 1vx. If a class was competitive as aoe and single dps then it would be GROSSLY overpowered. Staff is not the tool for spvp, its designed for hitting large groups that dont instantly burn you down, i.e zergs and pve.

Laughs in Scourge

I would like add that staff was pvp ele meta weapon during season 1. During that time there wasn't so much damage and condi like these days. When cele was removed tempest couldn't survive without focus in team fights and act like life support to reaper. Staff as support weapon is still great being run in wvw groups but in pvp it's far to easy to stop staff ele support/dps with cc chains and high moblity.