what state is staff in?

I'd really like to find an offensive guardian build with staff in it but is it any useful?

No, staff is dead. It got nerfed very, very hard. Do not use it.

Even when it wasn't dead, it was a support weapon, so an offensive build based on it is out of the question.

it ain't lootstick it was known as anymore, but is still workable as a basis for permeating wrath build, even throwing around some might and heals for other fellas to be double-usefull.

as for person above - the mere fact that permeating wrath staff build was at any point a thing (and it WAS a thing) goes against the claim that supportive nature of weapon leaves offensive functionalities out of consideration. also I have never really felt that range nerf which is only nerf to staff I recall happening in past years. aaaand they buffed other skills to compensate for that one.

It's meta for PVP.

That's about it.

@Lord Trejgon.2809 said:it ain't lootstick it was known as anymore, but is still workable as a basis for permeating wrath build, even throwing around some might and heals for other fellas to be double-usefull.

as for person above - the mere fact that permeating wrath staff build was at any point a thing (and it WAS a thing) goes against the claim that supportive nature of weapon leaves offensive functionalities out of consideration. also I have never really felt that range nerf which is only nerf to staff I recall happening in past years. aaaand they buffed other skills to compensate for that one.

The 600 range was what made the permeating wrath build viable as an offensive option. If you mathed it out and calculated the total area struck with the 600 range cone vs. the now 300 range and supposedly wider cone, you struck far more area before. That coupled with the fact that you could easily sit outside of melee range meant you could get two solid hits in with staff auto before having to trade at melee range. Now, 300 range is essentially melee range and permeating wrath or not, staff never has nor ever will be able to trade in melee with any other weapon in the game. It' just too weak.

The other buffs staff received were to staff 2 and those buffs didn't address the 2 major problems with the skill: It's too difficult/awkward to aim it with the intention of ally support and it's also far too slow to strike a target with beyond 400ish range. It's only real use is to launch and immediately detonate. Great, staff 2 is pretty much just a small heal and light aura. That's pretty poor as far as support goes.

RIP There had been pretty much none stop discussion/argument/complaints on the Nerf to the staff for awhile until most everbody gave up and figured that it probably isn't happening anytime soon. The overall opinion was that the nerf while it did address an issue from the WvW side of the game was VERY heavy handed and completely ignored other more pronounced issues on some other classes, and to add insult to injury they continued to drive home that it is a Support weapon while all they did strip was out the majority of what little offensive ability it had without adding much to improve its usefulness as a Support weapon. Hey sometimes your the Hammer sometimes your the Nail. Here is to hoping that they will readdress this at some time(not holding my breathe considering how long it took for them to give us Resistance on the Utility "Save Yourself" when that really should have added in there when they first added into the game).

@Staffordshire.1752 said:I'd really like to find an offensive guardian build with staff in it but is it any useful?

The guardians' staff is by far the worst weapon for the profession. It's a support weapon, yet it has so many design flaws that it prevents it from being a good support weapon. Not too long ago, ArenaNet reworked the engineers' Med Kit and let me tell you, it was an amazing rework. Not perfect, but still amazing.

The only thing we could hope for is that ArenaNet reworks the guardians' staff in order to make it the support weapon that it is meant to be.

@Arcaedus.7290 said:

@"Lord Trejgon.2809" said:it ain't lootstick it was known as anymore, but is still workable as a basis for permeating wrath build, even throwing around some might and heals for other fellas to be double-usefull.

as for person above - the mere fact that permeating wrath staff build was at any point a thing (and it WAS a thing) goes against the claim that supportive nature of weapon leaves offensive functionalities out of consideration. also I have never really felt that range nerf which is only nerf to staff I recall happening in past years. aaaand they buffed other skills to compensate for that one.

what made permeating wrath staff viable offensive option was ability to basically ensure passive justice proc with every swing, and this can still be achieved. you are still in a zerg you are still engaging enemy zergs, so for offensive supports it is still as good as it was for that build most of the time., and I'd still disagree about 300 being "essentially melee range" as is is still nearly twice the range and I can feel huge difference - coming from having displeasure of running in wvw zergs with melee-locked characters.

I feel benefit of light orb buffs on my guard way more than I feel effects of auto-attack range. it's just that I cannot just mindlessly spam 1 for all the loots.

@Hoodie.1045 said:

@Staffordshire.1752 said:I'd really like to find an offensive guardian build with staff in it but is it any useful?

well as soon as they did it just right I'd totally not mind or even cherish such a rework :)

especially would love staff#1 being reinstituted with chain skill that would involve more animations to it (have heard even some sugestions about remaking staf#1 into something akin to trident's new autochain)

Replace the two ff's in staff and you'll define its current usability in the game.

@"Lord Trejgon.2809" said:

what made permeating wrath staff viable offensive option was ability to basically ensure passive justice proc with every swing, and this can still be achieved. you are still in a zerg you are still engaging enemy zergs, so for offensive supports it is still as good as it was for that build most of the time., and I'd still disagree about 300 being "essentially melee range" as is is still nearly twice the range and I can feel huge difference - coming from having displeasure of running in wvw zergs with melee-locked characters.

I feel benefit of light orb buffs on my guard way more than I feel effects of auto-attack range. it's just that I cannot just mindlessly spam 1 for all the loots.

On paper what you said is true but in practice, 300 range is essentially melee range. Just for fun some time, try 1v1ing a guildie with staff. If they're using a melee weapon, you'll essentially get off one auto attack before they're already upon you, at which point you're trading blows. Staff, regardless of build, can NOT trade with any other weapon or build in the game, it's just that weak.

This would all be fine if it had decent support but the support it offers is a farcry from decent. Guard's main source of support currently is through tome support/utilities, not staff. Honestly you could change out staff for another weapon and your support/frontline guardian wouldn't feel very different. I would know since I was all over this near PoF launch.

Staff needs some love, and if it got that love, not a single person playing this game would complain. That's reason enough to buff it if you ask me.

@Arcaedus.7290 said:

@"Lord Trejgon.2809" said:

what made permeating wrath staff viable offensive option was ability to basically ensure passive justice proc with every swing, and this can still be achieved. you are still in a zerg you are still engaging enemy zergs, so for offensive supports it is still as good as it was for that build most of the time., and I'd still disagree about 300 being "essentially melee range" as is is still nearly twice the range and I can feel huge difference - coming from having displeasure of running in wvw zergs with melee-locked characters.

I feel benefit of light orb buffs on my guard way more than I feel effects of auto-attack range. it's just that I cannot just mindlessly spam 1 for all the loots.

I was speaking from personal experience with staff and with melee-locked builds. sure if you want to be dueling in guardian, then with amounts of mobility/gap closers you can't enforce staying out of enemy melee range (wasn't all that different with 600 range tho, guardian isn't exacly pinnacle of mobility) but then it's guardian not some ranger or sth to have to rely on staying out of enemy range.....

as for support, while orb of light is not bestest skill out there (most of the time I even forget it's there xD) 3-5 are skills thar are very often used in group fights, symbol of swift for movement, well timed empower can win you or loose you a fight, and line of warding lets you distort enemy unit's cohesion or deny escape to unsuspecting ones

staff is and always was group weapon so of course it woon't be performing well in solo fights, on the other hand most of what you said does not really apply to group fights

@Lord Trejgon.2809 said:I was speaking from personal experience with staff and with melee-locked builds. sure if you want to be dueling in guardian, then with amounts of mobility/gap closers you can't enforce staying out of enemy melee range (wasn't all that different with 600 range tho, guardian isn't exacly pinnacle of mobility) but then it's guardian not some ranger or sth to have to rely on staying out of enemy range.....

as for support, while orb of light is not bestest skill out there (most of the time I even forget it's there xD) 3-5 are skills thar are very often used in group fights, symbol of swift for movement, well timed empower can win you or loose you a fight, and line of warding lets you distort enemy unit's cohesion or deny escape to unsuspecting ones

staff is and always was group weapon so of course it woon't be performing well in solo fights, on the other hand most of what you said does not really apply to group fights

It was kind of veiled, but the point I was trying to make with the 1v1 is that this scenario is the closest in which you will ever get on staff to making use of its 300 range. In a XvX or zerg fight, you absolutely won't get to make good use of any weapon with a range under 1200. You'll soak up damage/condis far too quickly meaning you'll have to prioritize skills other than auto attack. This was also a problem when auto range was 600, but the closer you are to 1200+ range, the easier it is for you to sneak in auto attacks rather than having to use other skills just to sustain yourself. Another problem is that this nerf to staff auto was made for the wrong reason: players/npcs/siege getting struck behind walls/doors of towers.

Orb of Light should be ground-targeted, that's really all I'm suggesting. The actual support it provides by itself is decent, but the main problem is that it is too difficult to aim at allies which is unacceptable considering that it has abysmal offensive capability (so it's currently not very useful for either offence or support).

Empower used to be a decent skill but since the release of Herald and Tempest, it's become relatively devalued. Also, considering the power-creeped and much more mobile meta today, Empower can actually be a liability to use. In general, self-immobilizing skills are not fun in this game unless they provide a very powerful or unrivaled effect. You could argue 12 stacks of might for 6 players is powerful but it really isn't unrivaled by any measure.

Line of Warding does what you said, but not very well. It's also completely inferior to elementalist's earth staff #4 skill (has a 4x faster cast time and trait synergy in the air traitline). It's one of the worst CCs in the game currently and requires far too much skill or luck for such a minor reward since most of the time it's simply ignored or quickly navigated around.

@Arcaedus.7290 said:

@"Lord Trejgon.2809" said:I was speaking from personal experience with staff and with melee-locked builds. sure if you want to be dueling in guardian, then with amounts of mobility/gap closers you can't enforce staying out of enemy melee range (wasn't all that different with 600 range tho, guardian isn't exacly pinnacle of mobility) but then it's guardian not some ranger or sth to have to rely on staying out of enemy range.....

as for support, while orb of light is not bestest skill out there (most of the time I even forget it's there xD) 3-5 are skills thar are very often used in group fights, symbol of swift for movement, well timed empower can win you or loose you a fight, and line of warding lets you distort enemy unit's cohesion or deny escape to unsuspecting ones

staff is and always was group weapon so of course it woon't be performing well in solo fights, on the other hand most of what you said does not really apply to group fights

well dunno how in higher tiers, or on lower than what our server is on at this point but our guild is oftenly pushing throught to melee range (and throught enemy zerg), in which case I can with no issue tag some guys for AoE burns between tome CDs - sure you can't just mindlessly rush to them as you'll die, but it is not like everyone were pirateshipping nowadays all the time.... (bonus points for shouts and mantras being instacasts that don;t interrupt other actions - I could launch my elite, healing and all 3 utilities at same time by properly smashing the keyboard ;) )

personally I'd be happy with ord of light auto-detonating instead of despawning when hitting terrain - fire it at your legs and voila group buffed, ground targetting could do as well altho that would require more effort to implement probably... at which point they could just revamp the weapon I think

empower may be a little bit outpowercreeped indeed, but commanders are still calling out specifically for empower in certain situations, not for whatever herald/tempest has for might stacking - also it has some heal and I'd guess their counterparts on revy/ele don't.

not sure what earth staff #4 was, functionally I'd be comparing it more to that air ring, not sure if it was 4 or 5...

for me to drop it requires very little if any effort and the only guys who "ignores" it are guys with stability, and that means they have 1 stability less which means it fullified the function - walking around is not as easy as it sound and requires rerouting of a group, and alot of players I have seen tend to not notice it before being knocked back anyway xD.

you could just as well say Winds of Disenchantments are not usefull elite since it drops on you(one doing casting), have noticeable casting time and enemies can just walk around it ;) and I think we both know how that plays out in practice.

in zerg clashes I am usually either in one of tomes or on staff, I very rarely have a need of pulling out my other swap (xe+torch) despite the build being more toned towards the latter with former being there just because it's guardian meant for group fights.

PS. small disclaimer just in case - I am not saying that staff don't need any changes at all or that it is great weapon - what I say is that it's not as bad as many seems complain, and that I am mostly satisfied from my usage of the weapon - would still welcome any improvements ;)

@"Lord Trejgon.2809" said:

personally I'd be happy with ord of light auto-detonating instead of despawning when hitting terrain - fire it at your legs and voila group buffed, ground targetting could do as well altho that would require more effort to implement probably... at which point they could just revamp the weapon I think

Exactly. I'm sure everyone would welcome a staff revamp or rework. In light of some of the more melee-looking staff skins, it would be nice if just one of the staff skills had a swipe/striking animation to it, so some animation reworks could be done to staff as well (staff 4 and 5 are a bit boring imo).

empower may be a little bit outpowercreeped indeed, but commanders are still calling out specifically for empower in certain situations, not for whatever herald/tempest has for might stacking - also it has some heal and I'd guess their counterparts on revy/ele don't.

Old habits, partially. People are naturally resistant to change to a degree and the older you get the more susceptible you are to this. Commanders tend to be a bit on the older side from my experience.

not sure what earth staff #4 was, functionally I'd be comparing it more to that air ring, not sure if it was 4 or 5...

Unsteady Ground. Think Line of Warding, but with a 1/4s cast time. It's flat out better. You might look up these two skills and argue that it's not strictly superior since Line of Warding lasts a bit longer and is a light field, but the extra duration doesn't mean much when people "deal" with it within the first couple seconds, and "lets blast Line of Warding light field to clear condis" said no one ever.

you could just as well say Winds of Disenchantments are not usefull elite since it drops on you(one doing casting), have noticeable casting time and enemies can just walk around it ;) and I think we both know how that plays out in practice.

Winds has an enormous radius and while true, it is difficult to use, the reward is MASSIVE. Line of Warding often times goes to waste or has little effect in most scenarios.

PS. small disclaimer just in case - I am not saying that staff don't need any changes at all or that it is great weapon - what I say is that it's not as bad as many seems complain, and that I am mostly satisfied from my usage of the weapon - would still welcome any improvements ;)

I get that. Many of the complainers here including myself are biased. I for example mainly roam while in wvw, so of course I'm not going to like a weapon that offers jack squat for offence. However, what we really want is a crispy new staff revamp or at least some buffs :)

So if you see people trash-talking staff, defending it is more likely to send the message to Anet that it's okay and needs no changes.

I have to agree entirely on a staff's need for a revamp. After all when they did the Nerf that they basically stated that it's a support weapon but in wiping out what little offensive potential it had by killing it's range on the AA(even giving the range equal to the Mantras might have worked out better) but at the same time they really added little to nothing to improve its over support value which has been over rated. The Line Of Warding is so over rated in that unless they fixed it if you timed it right you could dodge roll thru it with no ill effects so baring a rather limited denial with a poor breakbar effect I really don't how this measures up.

@"RUNICBLACK.7630" said:RIP There had been pretty much none stop discussion/argument/complaints on the Nerf to the staff for awhile until most everbody gave up and figured that it probably isn't happening anytime soon. The overall opinion was that the nerf while it did address an issue from the WvW side of the game was VERY heavy handed and completely ignored other more pronounced issues on some other classes, and to add insult to injury they continued to drive home that it is a Support weapon while all they did strip was out the majority of what little offensive ability it had without adding much to improve its usefulness as a Support weapon. Hey sometimes your the Hammer sometimes your the Nail. Here is to hoping that they will readdress this at some time(not holding my breathe considering how long it took for them to give us Resistance on the Utility "Save Yourself" when that really should have added in there when they first added into the game).

Welcome to GW2 "balance"... Interactions happen in WvW, and the rest of the game suffers for it...

Staff was never a great weapon to begin. And never as an offensive weapon, like OP wants, it had a wide cleave cone for tagging, and some nice support options. Nowadays it's pretty much a substandard weapon that rarely sees use... Most classes have one of those... It just happens to be staff for Guard.

@"Arcaedus.7290" said:Exactly. I'm sure everyone would welcome a staff revamp or rework. In light of some of the more melee-looking staff skins, it would be nice if just one of the staff skills had a swipe/striking animation to it, so some animation reworks could be done to staff as well (staff 4 and 5 are a bit boring imo).

yesplz moar animations to guard staff ^-^

Winds has an enormous radius and while true, it is difficult to use, the reward is MASSIVE. Line of Warding often times goes to waste or has little effect in most scenarios.

well I'd say on feeling the "radius" of WoD is about same as lenght of line of warding - one is just a huge ball and other is small line that gets often lost in FX spam of everything else ;)

PS. small disclaimer just in case - I am not saying that staff don't need any changes at all or that it is great weapon - what I say is that it's not as bad as many seems complain, and that I am mostly satisfied from my usage of the weapon - would still welcome any improvements ;)

implying AN even reads guardian forum ;)

@"ReaverKane.7598" said:Staff was never a great weapon to begin. And never as an offensive weapon, like OP wants, it had a wide cleave cone for tagging, and some nice support options. Nowadays it's pretty much a substandard weapon that rarely sees use... Most classes have one of those... It just happens to be staff for Guard.

well it was nicknamed "lootstick" for a reason ;)

and then really the only workable offensively oriented build for staff only pretends to works in zergs.... (or swarmy type of encounters in pve maybe perhaps?) so I'd say very niche and perhaps not exacly what OP wanted ^-^

If only the trident skill set got copy-pasted onto the staff.

@Lord Trejgon.2809 said:

@"Arcaedus.7290" said:Exactly. I'm sure everyone would welcome a staff revamp or rework. In light of some of the more melee-looking staff skins, it would be nice if just one of the staff skills had a swipe/striking animation to it, so some animation reworks could be done to staff as well (staff 4 and 5 are a bit boring imo).

yesplz moar animations to guard staff ^-^

Winds has an enormous radius and while true, it is difficult to use, the reward is MASSIVE. Line of Warding often times goes to waste or has little effect in most scenarios.

well I'd say on feeling the "radius" of WoD is about same as lenght of line of warding - one is just a huge ball and other is small line that gets often lost in FX spam of everything else ;)

PS. small disclaimer just in case - I am not saying that staff don't need any changes at all or that it is great weapon - what I say is that it's not as bad as many seems complain, and that I am mostly satisfied from my usage of the weapon - would still welcome any improvements ;)

implying AN even reads guardian forum

@"ReaverKane.7598" said:Staff was never a great weapon to begin. And never as an offensive weapon, like OP wants, it had a wide cleave cone for tagging, and some nice support options. Nowadays it's pretty much a substandard weapon that rarely sees use... Most classes have one of those... It just happens to be staff for Guard.

PvE not so good.. never was, WvW and PvP its 100% meta

@Mini Crinny.6190 said:PvE not so good.. never was, WvW and PvP its 100% meta

Alot of wvw groups are running hammers now and just blasting swiftness and might as needed.

@Gwaihir.1745 said:

@Mini Crinny.6190 said:PvE not so good.. never was, WvW and PvP its 100% meta

Odd, most FB builds are Staff and Mace/Shield Staff still brings amazing healing to WvW groups

Honestly it's been forever since I've seen empower called for by a zerg comm. Especially since people are now accustomed to fb water field so they can self blast for almost the same healing on the way out of tome.

I use it for zerging on my support firebrand. Once I pop out of a tome I hit 4 and then 2 to put out heals for my nearby allies. I use it for swiftness too on 3. When we push I throw out line of warding to make it harder for the enemy to kite backwards from us. I never use auto attack. Out of combat I use it for swiftness and then swap to my great sword for the gap closer over and over again.

If i wasnt full heal spec I think it would be much worse but the 4, 2 combo is decent between tome swaps.

I would like to see Guardian Staff rework into a super support weapon by buffing through traitsSkill 1, give back 600 range to PvE only, and through Staff trait 'Honorable Staff' would gives % base healing bonus base on range, the closer the more heal you give, max range 300 and up to 3 targets with the lowest health; the positioning of your team and you need to be right to get the max benefit, but at the same time you will be at risk at getting hitSkill 2, directional targeting rather than tab targeting, detonation damage foe gives barrier to alliesSkill 3, no changeSkill 4, gives all max effects at the end of the channel, no build up, a gamble to use the skill during mid-fight, so animation cancel will be punishingSkill 5 no change