WvW/PvP - Can we make the Air Staff semi-viable for 1v1 encounters?

It's well known that Staff Eles are pretty much free kills being all squishy and lacking quick counters. I look at Air Staff skills and they are horrible because they are geared towards multiple target, meaning their stats are "balanced" to compensate for hitting several foes at once. I wish they are more focused on single target for spike damage/counter so Staff Ele can have a decent fighting chance in 1v1.

Just take different weapons for 1v1/roaming.

Anything stated in this post will use WvW as its basis because I am not qualified to speak for PvE or PvP.

The staff was designed to be an AoE focused weapon, thus gearing itself for more large scale battles . I think that changing some of the staff skills to be more single target oriented would hurt the elementalist profession, because it would be a direct nerf to the one viable weapon available to elementalists for these kind of engagements.

For Roaming or even just running back to your group if you happened to die I would suggest swapping to any of the other weapons more geared for smaller engagements, there are several of these available.

There is a way to turn your staff into a 1v1 weapon. It's called doubleclicking the scepter in your inventory. It magically transforms all your AoE-oriented skills into 1v1 oriented skills.

:trollface:

I'd actually prefer it the other way around, make Staff Air more AoE/Group Combat focused, both Skill #2 and #3 are pretty much useless in group fights and should be revamped in my opinion. Most of the time you'd only ever use #4 and #5 on air or have Air up for the increased speed (depending on the build) but other than those Air is pretty useless.

Air already has semi-viable 1v1 options with weaver. Pile driver+air 2 is a very strong burst, especially when used with one or two arcane skills and/or glyph of elemental power. Bonus points if you immob enemy with arcane skills and use glyph in air for vulnerability.