Staff Heal HELP!!! Suggestions?!!

Hi guys!!

I like to use staff on my elementalist but I prefer to play with Ground Targeting : Instant mode so when I'm panicking I don't have to try to click on where to land my skills or when I'm fighting world boss like taquatl I can make sure my skill really land on him with the big AOE.

However I notice this makes the healing skill from staff water 3 and 5 almost useless, because my healing skill always goes to the enemy instead of myself. Is there a way to adjust this so my healing skill land on myself and the damage skill goes to the enemy?? I tried to move my mouse to bottom of the screen when I use the water 3 and 5 skills so it cast on myself but when I'm in panic mode like in PVP or WVW it never works because my finger are so stupid it just does't react fast enough to cast it on myself....and it goes to the enemy instead.

How do you guys do it??!! I feel like Anet should make those healing skills cast around the caster when it's on ground targeting: instant mode...

Thanks

Every time when you activate Staff Water skill 3 or 5, or any aoe skills, the default position always centre on your character, even when you are running. The only time the aoes move to the mobs or allies is when you target them manually with your mouse.

You tab once on the skill buttons (or click once) to show the aoe position, then you tab/click again to activate it. In other words, just tab/click twice on the skills and the aoes will always be centred on you.

@Mil.3562 said:Every time when you activate Staff Water skill 3 or 5, or any aoe skills, the default position always centre on your character, even when you are running. The only time the aoes move to the mobs or allies is when you target them manually with your mouse.

You tab once on the skill buttons (or click once) to show the aoe position, then you tab/click again to activate it. In other words, just tab/click twice on the skills and the aoes will always be centred on you.

Thanks for your advice!,However I don’t get to click twice for skill to trigger...literally its 1 click my skill shoot off so I don’t see where it’s going because it’s always going to whatever I’m targeting... I tried to do the double tap for skill to trigger and I find my fingers gets really sore because I have to click twice for a skill to get off so I switch to instant cast...but now my staff water 3,5 became ridiculously difficult to cast on myself...

Is there any other way to do it to let my water heal to heal myself during combat?

There are only three ground targeting options...

Normal - I am used to this, the double tap or double click action.Fast with Range Indicator - You tab or click and hold while moving your aoe circle to the target and release the key tab or click to activate the skill.Instant- I believe this is what you are using now. Like the name said, it's instant skill activation the moment you tab or click the skill. The way to self-heal is to position your mouse cursor on yourself before you tab the skill button.

You probably checked option to always drop aoes on targeted enemy. Disable that and you'll be fine.

@steki.1478 said:You probably checked option to always drop aoes on targeted enemy. Disable that and you'll be fine.

Ya I was wondering if there is an option to allow healing to self heal only...so i can still have my aoe on enemy and heal skill on myself???

@Tom Hsiao.9705 said:Hi guys!!

I like to use staff on my elementalist but I prefer to play with Ground Targeting : Instant mode so when I'm panicking I don't have to try to click on where to land my skills or when I'm fighting world boss like taquatl I can make sure my skill really land on him with the big AOE.

However I notice this makes the healing skill from staff water 3 and 5 almost useless, because my healing skill always goes to the enemy instead of myself. Is there a way to adjust this so my healing skill land on myself and the damage skill goes to the enemy?? I tried to move my mouse to bottom of the screen when I use the water 3 and 5 skills so it cast on myself but when I'm in panic mode like in PVP or WVW it never works because my finger are so stupid it just does't react fast enough to cast it on myself....and it goes to the enemy instead.

How do you guys do it??!! I feel like Anet should make those healing skills cast around the caster when it's on ground targeting: instant mode...

Thanks

Questions to begin with are you playing with a generalist attribute set up or with something more focused on plus healing?

If the answer is the first then you need to practice more with manual ground targeting. You don;t have to be perfect just aim for where the fight is in general. After the changes to Elementalist staff in water attunement most of the support you'll offer is by blasting your own fields by not having to change attunement. It might seem wonky but you want to have your ground targets set regular for the sake of situational awareness. So that instead of being lead around by having your gtaoe always set at max distance and instant, or trying to have it land right on your squadmate(which is bad because there's a good chance they could leap or be blasted out of it anyway and as a result the ice spike you try to land on them on place won't get to blast the field you lay down on them wherever they land) and trying to keep focused on group mates you'll be free to slow or quicken the pace at which you follow them and help them more by blasting fields near enough to them to matter. Sort of how good gunfighters in the old west during shootouts took the extra fraction of a second to aim a single shot and hit their mark rather than blasting a volley of inaccurate shots off.

Don't panic.

It's just a matter of setting ice spike generally near or in where they're fighting first, then dumping either Geyser on top of it right after for area healing, Frozen ground for Area Frost Aura, or Healing Rain for even more area healing. This allows you to have better personal positioning in order to drop these combo fields and then manoeuvre to either shift attunements for damage or crowd control.

Again, the best thing to keep in mind here is not to panic. The beauty of blasted fields is that placement doesn't have to be precise so long as even a fraction of the ice spike circle overlaps a part of the field circle you're blasting.

So long as you get that combo off(anticipate the delay of ice spike to drop your fields after placing it) you're good because 1) without substantial plus healing Geyser and Healing Rain won't heal all that much on their own, and 2) Healing rain has a ridiculously large radius and will be primarily used for curing conditions. These are fire and forgets so just leave them where you believe the centre of the fighting is or is going to be in the next few seconds. The fields are wide enough that it's nearly impossible to miss with them especially if blasted.

If you're running a full plus heal set up then it's even easier because you turn off all auto targeting, keep the right mouse button down(or whatever you use for camera look whilst running), blast fields as listed above, and in between field blasts aim Staff One(Water Blast) constantly at the feet of your party -healing not only them but yourself as well if you aim it straight down as you run. This is a great way of keeping a fight mobile whilst topping everyone off. It also allows you to lag behind them a bit if needed and constantly heal them from a distance. This, combined with field blasting, is incredible if healing for a blob in world versus world. More, if running with a Magi set up you'll have a deep health pool and, with food/oil, will be throwing out water blasts healing in excess of a thousand points easily.

You probably know all of this, but even so hope some of it helps.

@Tom Hsiao.9705 said:

@steki.1478 said:You probably checked option to always drop aoes on targeted enemy. Disable that and you'll be fine.

There isn't.

@Iozeph.5617 said:

@Tom Hsiao.9705 said:Hi guys!!

I like to use staff on my elementalist but I prefer to play with

Ground Targeting : Instant

mode so when I'm panicking I don't have to try to click on where to land my skills or when I'm fighting world boss like taquatl I can make sure my skill really land on him with the big AOE.

However I notice this makes the healing skill from staff water 3 and 5 almost useless, because my healing skill always goes to the enemy instead of myself. Is there a way to adjust this so my healing skill land on myself and the damage skill goes to the enemy?? I tried to move my mouse to bottom of the screen when I use the water 3 and 5 skills so it cast on myself but when I'm in panic mode like in PVP or WVW it never works because my finger are so stupid it just does't react fast enough to cast it on myself....and it goes to the enemy instead.

How do you guys do it??!! I feel like Anet should make those healing skills cast around the caster when it's on ground targeting: instant mode...

Thanks

Wow thank you for the detailed explanation! Really appreciate that.Guess I have to manually click it with my mouse so it can heal myself sigh