Staff elem - No love for pvp ?

Why dev don't work a bit on staff elem as a viable build in pvp ?Since day 1, it's maybe one of the few spe that have never been really loved.It's a pity.

I think the problem is that it lacks of survability and it's squishy feeling. Damages are too much and all from 1 elem : fire and other element are used only for some slow defensive traits.

So the global philosophy could be :

• reduce damages from fire and add some burn for condi options.

• Increase damages and cast speed for other elements

• reduce cast time of numerous skills, especially defensive skills

• there are much more buff than nerf but we all know how bad the spe is.

FIRE1- fireball : reduce damages of 10 %2- lava font : reduce damages of 10-20 % but add a stack of 1 burn for 1 sec, every sec3- flame burst : increase stack of burn from 2 to 34- burning retreat : reduce cd from 20 to 155- meteor shower : reduce damages of 10-20 % but add a stack of 1 burn for 2 sec for each hit

WATER1- water blast : increase damages to 10 %2- ice spike : add stun targets for 1 sec or make it drop faster with slower cast time3- geyser : reduce cast time from 3/4 to 1/24- frozen ground : ok skill5- healing rain, reduce cd from 40 sec to 30 sec

AIR1- increase damages to 10-20 % or make shoot a bit faster2- lightning surge : reduce cast time from 1sec to 1/2 and reduce cd from 10 to 8 sec3- gust : increase speed of shoot + reflect enemy shoots4- windborn speed : add give superspeed for 2 sec5- static field : add 3 stacks of vulnerability for 5 sec

EARTH1- stoning : increase damages to 10-20 % or add bleeding option2- eruption : reduce cast time from 1 1/4 to 3/43- magnetic aura : ok skill4- unsteady ground : ok skill5- shock wave : reduce cast time from 3/4 to 1/4

Why dev don't work a bit on staff elem as a viable build in pvp ?Since day 1, it's maybe one of the few spe that have never been really loved.It's a pity.

I do agree that the staff could be improved to be an amazing weapon and can be used in duels rather than just being used for supporting allies.

I think the problem is that it lacks of survability and it's squishy feeling.

Contrary to popular belief, staff Elementalist has more survivability and is not as squishy as Sc/F Elementalists.

FIRE1- fireball : reduce damages of 10 %2- lava font : reduce damages of 10-20 % but add a stack of 1 burn for 1 sec, every sec3- flame burst : increase stack of burn from 2 to 34- burning retreat : reduce cd from 20 to 155- meteor shower : reduce damages of 10-20 % but add a stack of 1 burn for 2 sec for each hit

I agree with your proposed changes on 3 and 4. The only thing I'd change is the cast time on Fireball from 1 second to 0.75 seconds.

WATER1- water blast : increase damages to 10 %2- ice spike : add stun targets for 1 sec or make it drop faster with slower cast time3- geyser : reduce cast time from 3/4 to 1/24- frozen ground : ok skill5- healing rain, reduce cd from 40 sec to 30 sec

One thing I'd recommend is to reduce the cooldown on Frozen Ground from 30 seconds to 25 seconds.

AIR1- increase damages to 10-20 % or make shoot a bit faster2- lightning surge : reduce cast time from 1sec to 1/2 and reduce cd from 10 to 8 sec3- gust : increase speed of shoot + reflect enemy shoots4- windborn speed : add give superspeed for 2 sec5- static field : add 3 stacks of vulnerability for 5 sec

Chain Lightning needs to function like the scepters' skill 2 Lightning Strike, i.e. instant and hits multiple foes. The current auto attack is very slow and underwhelming. Lightning Surge needs to have the cast time reduced from 1 second to 0.5 seconds or instant. Reduce the cooldown on Gust and Windborne Speed from 25 seconds to 15 seconds and reduce the cooldown on Static Field from 30 seconds to 25 seconds.

EARTH1- stoning : increase damages to 10-20 % or add bleeding option2- eruption : reduce cast time from 1 1/4 to 3/43- magnetic aura : ok skill4- unsteady ground : ok skill5- shock wave : reduce cast time from 3/4 to 1/4

Stoning doesn't need to apply bleeding. It already applies weakness which is something that not a lot of the Elementalists' weapons can do reliably. Eruption definitely needs to have its' cast time reduce to 0.75 seconds and the rest of the skill should have their cooldowns reduced from 30 seconds to 20 seconds.

what's an "elemmmmmm"?

@Hoodie.1045 said:

Why dev don't work a bit on staff elem as a viable build in pvp ?Since day 1, it's maybe one of the few spe that have never been really loved.It's a pity.

I think the problem is that it lacks of survability and it's squishy feeling.

FIRE1- fireball : reduce damages of 10 %2- lava font : reduce damages of 10-20 % but add a stack of 1 burn for 1 sec, every sec3- flame burst : increase stack of burn from 2 to 34- burning retreat : reduce cd from 20 to 155- meteor shower : reduce damages of 10-20 % but add a stack of 1 burn for 2 sec for each hit

WATER1- water blast : increase damages to 10 %2- ice spike : add stun targets for 1 sec or make it drop faster with slower cast time3- geyser : reduce cast time from 3/4 to 1/24- frozen ground : ok skill5- healing rain, reduce cd from 40 sec to 30 sec

AIR1- increase damages to 10-20 % or make shoot a bit faster2- lightning surge : reduce cast time from 1sec to 1/2 and reduce cd from 10 to 8 sec3- gust : increase speed of shoot + reflect enemy shoots4- windborn speed : add give superspeed for 2 sec5- static field : add 3 stacks of vulnerability for 5 sec

EARTH1- stoning : increase damages to 10-20 % or add bleeding option2- eruption : reduce cast time from 1 1/4 to 3/43- magnetic aura : ok skill4- unsteady ground : ok skill5- shock wave : reduce cast time from 3/4 to 1/4

Staff ele is 100% less survivable than s/f ele. Staff ele has far less effective anti projectile and anti burst capability. Additionally the instant cast nature of s/f gives you way better retaliation abilities vs specs like thief. It also has excellent toughness uptime and spammable blind.

Staff ele is 100% less survivable than s/f ele. Staff ele has far less effective anti projectile and anti burst capability. Additionally the instant cast nature of s/f gives you way better retaliation abilities vs specs like thief. It also has excellent toughness uptime and spammable blind.

I take back what I said about the staff having more survivability than Sc/F elementalist. It's a slow supportive weapon that is lackluster, at least when it comes to PvP, so the only reason to use the staff is in PvE for supporting allies. Though that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to make it somewhat better than what it currently is.

If you want to make staff viable in Pvp I don't think you should nerf anything in it, especially all the fire skills, because it's already pretty shit with the long cast time/channel/cd. Just for reference, a "high impact" skill like meteor shower only has a tiny bit more radius than a Sand Savant Shade. Shades are basically meteor shower on steroids considering how they can be spammed, inflicts cripple on hit, no channeling, and no rng hits. Lava Font and Fireball basically never hit anyone that's moving because their aoes are so small and they're so slow (the initial damaging tick of lava font & fireball's projectile can both be avoided by just simply strafing).

Staff fire skills are so bad, they basically dont do anything other than zone people off the point for a couple of seconds or cleave downs/afks, and it's also the reason why all the staff builds are Pile Driver burst cheese.

Nerfing staff fire skills' damage and adding random burns is a huge, unnecessary nerf.

They're too busy making sure that scepter ele can't be viable for anything except being a meme (shatterstone needs moar buffs plz).

your proposed changes would absolutely decimate my zerker staff elefire is the only thing zerker staff has, and you want to nerf it!

i agree staff ele needs love, but nerfing one of the only things that it does well isn't a great way to do it! XD

Staff ele needed good defensive stats to work, but those amulets are gone or nerfed.. not like defensive stats mean a lot these days with the pressure we have available

I'd love to see Staff Elementalists be the power crit version of scourges. Huge AoE team damage. Elementalists exclusively being these weird sustainy things never sat right with me. It's why I was sad to see Fresh Air nerf because at least it was an elementalist spec that felt like a classic wizard.

Staff was viable before HoT and in season 1. Why? Elite spec's since death of bunker meta arguably (guard/thief) outclass core spec damage output and it's no longer possible to run marauder and 1v1 stuff having chance to win (in pvp).

In my opinion issue with staff is not being able to pressure immediately (there is tho meme piledriver build)...for example lava front...you need to afk in it to actually feel it's dps. Necros for example have no issue with that...the best thing they got is aoe based almost (like our staff), hit like truck without relying on pulsing skills to much (if you are carless) and add boon corrupt. We actually need to wait to see if our skills ever hit something.

Unfortunately devs are more then aware that after DH and scourge forum hysteria, community bellow plat can't deal with aoe spam on nodes. I would love to staff something ele be some kinda alternative for necro team fighting builds...but I don't see that ever happen. Besides this would require reworks...not random damage number buff to actually improve staff...and that would have massive consequences to current pve raid meta...and it's seems that our ele dev REALLY cares for raid dps meta against npc's.

I feel that staff is just to slow of a weapon to use in pvp properly, everything worthwhile using has a slow channeling time, or slow travel time...that can be dodged or played around so it ends up useless. Every other weapon can run circles around what staff does....when ever i see a staff ele(m) i just laugh at the free kill and thank him for using such a easy weapon to play around...I wish it wasnt the case. I think if they made all the skills where u need to stand still to u can use them while moving you might see an increase in use, but that still wont solve the slow nature of the weapon.

@mortrialus.3062 said:I'd love to see Staff Elementalists be the power crit version of scourges. Huge AoE team damage. Elementalists exclusively being these weird sustainy things never sat right with me. It's why I was sad to see Fresh Air nerf because at least it was an elementalist spec that felt like a classic wizard.

How about we just delete scourge instead of multiplying its shitty design..

@witcher.3197 said:

@mortrialus.3062 said:I'd love to see Staff Elementalists be the power crit version of scourges. Huge AoE team damage. Elementalists exclusively being these weird sustainy things never sat right with me. It's why I was sad to see Fresh Air nerf because at least it was an elementalist spec that felt like a classic wizard.

I think the community is filled with whiners who kneejerk against anything that kills them in game, ever. We have a three page thread on warrior's heal signet for crying out loud.

Scourges need a variety of tweaks. But most of the people on the forum are just pissed because they ran right into straight into Scourge sewage and predictably died.

@mortrialus.3062 said:

@witcher.3197 said:

@mortrialus.3062 said:I'd love to see Staff Elementalists be the power crit version of scourges. Huge AoE team damage. Elementalists exclusively being these weird sustainy things never sat right with me. It's why I was sad to see Fresh Air nerf because at least it was an elementalist spec that felt like a classic wizard.

Are you seriously going to defend scourge design, because if there's any complaint on the forum about the wrong things taht immediately discredits all the other ones or something?

@mortrialus.3062 said:

@witcher.3197 said:

@mortrialus.3062 said:I'd love to see Staff Elementalists be the power crit version of scourges. Huge AoE team damage. Elementalists exclusively being these weird sustainy things never sat right with me. It's why I was sad to see Fresh Air nerf because at least it was an elementalist spec that felt like a classic wizard.

Hey man, that signet is extremely OP apparently

@MithranArkanere.8957 said:I've seen warriors standing still using the /laugh emote without stances on, and still recovering all health under the effects of posion while being hit by 3 other people.

It gets a little ridiculous some times.

Maybe they should consider changing the Passive of Healing signet to heal when hit instead over time.

No wonder the Warrior was /laughing though, seriously, I would have too.

Adding a weapon swap would make staff more viable I think.

@witcher.3197 said:

@mortrialus.3062 said:

@witcher.3197 said:

@mortrialus.3062 said:I'd love to see Staff Elementalists be the power crit version of scourges. Huge AoE team damage. Elementalists exclusively being these weird sustainy things never sat right with me. It's why I was sad to see Fresh Air nerf because at least it was an elementalist spec that felt like a classic wizard.

These are the sorts of things I think should be addressed with scourge:

1. Anticipation frames before all of the sandshade skills. Every sand shade skill should have a very clear signaler of what attack is about to come. Think like the downstate fear, how it has this big tell that lets you know exactly when the fear is coming. Having big ugly red rings is such a bandaid solution and it just looks awful. That's the type of thing I would like to see and it would give scourge more much better counter play.
2. Transfusion and well of blood being able to near instantly revive downed characters. I think it's worth looking at.
3. Might shouldn't corrupt into weakness. Might is a weak boon on it's own that basically every build is going to accidentally get at least one or two stacks of without trying. Weakness is the most devastating non-damaging condition in the game especially for power builds. Like I get that the flavor of corrupting might into weakness seems right, but the level of punishment from that easy weakness application should be rethinked.

That's genuinely what I think should be done with Scourge. I don't think being big AoE damage is a problematic aspect of scourge, especially when they're otherwise very vulnerable to getting focus fired without dedicated support and are as easy to follow as they aren't blinking and stealthing everywhere. It's only a problem with bad players who think "I need to get the node immediately!" and just run onto the node covered in scourge sewage and die, rather than thinking "If we win the team fight we can cap the node in our leisure."

Let staff for Pve boys ... and try to do something on : dagger , focus, warhorn , scepter (all the unused/lackluster weapons)

I'd like to see some earth or air staff skills changed to have a few offensive melee skills that you can go in, do high damage with, then flash or roll out after using them and go back to ranged. It would let us do some fast pvp damage, and also make staff not as boring to play.

Z