What happened to Staff? Why the nerf?

So I come back to the game after a year thinking a support Firebrand in WvW is going to be a lot of fun since I like that support playstyle, then I notice I'm not hitting anything at all even right in the middle of a zerg. 300 range AA? WTH? I mean if they wanted to tone down the loot stick, ok, reduce the targets to 3 or mildly reduce the range to 450 or w/e but 300 range makes it near useless.

Loot aint everything, of course, but it counts and if I can fill my inventory several times a night playing scourge, I'd like to be able to fill it at least once playing Support FB.

Good news scepter skill 2 and you can tag from range bud.

@Linken.6345 said:Good news scepter skill 2 and you can tag from range bud.

Bad news since scepter has little support attached.

Not sure exactly why they nerfed staff but like you said it's in a very bad spot right now. Empower and Symbol of Swiftness are the only two note-worthy skills on staff and they alone do not justify this as a support weapon.

I really hope that they have staff lined up for some major buffs, or better yet, skill reworks for the next under-used weapon skills balance pass (Soon ™).

Yep staff sucks. But so does mace, hammer and to a degree sword. All of them could use a rework.

You do not even spend a lot of time using your weapons as a firebrand or at least not spamming your auto attacks. A proper tome skill rotation and usage takes up most of your time. Staff is still the go-to weapon in WvW. Empower is as good as ever, the healing got buffed even. The swiftness symbol is just as useful and the line is even better than before due to the abundance of stability removal you see nowadays. But yes, the days of loot training with "staff 1" are over.Also, for those worried about their loot: Use Epilogue: Ashes of the Just (skill five) of your Tome of Justice. The burning your allies apply is counted as your own damage. Meaning that they hit stuff and you get the loot.

I'm not sure what you mean, staff never did much damage with 1 spam even since launch. Mace is a strictly also more of a support weapon because with the honor line you can get a block-heal spam. Sword, given the right hands can do more dps than axe, just cleaves a little less.

He's talking about not being able to tag shit now in WvW with staff compared to before, not about damage.

@"Henry.5713" said:You do not even spend a lot of time using your weapons as a firebrand or at least not spamming your auto attacks. A proper tome skill rotation and usage takes up most of your time. Staff is still the go-to weapon in WvW. Empower is as good as ever, the healing got buffed even. The swiftness symbol is just as useful and the line is even better than before due to the abundance of stability removal you see nowadays. But yes, the days of loot training with "staff 1" are over.Also, for those worried about their loot: Use Epilogue: Ashes of the Just (skill five) of your Tome of Justice. The burning your allies apply is counted as your own damage. Meaning that they hit stuff and you get the loot.

This. A Firebrand should be using the Tomes most of the time. The weapon almost becomes incidental...