how many mesmers want staff to be a better weapon?

do you want staff to be a better weapon?

kasmeer is a mesmer! she uses a staff! she has a lot of fun with it yet her allies don't tell her to stop using staff because it's a bad weapon. yet, a lot of mesmers are unable to use staffs anywhere except for open world because it's just... bad damage, meh support, but has some utility with 2.

but clearly, a lot of people want a staff mesmer to work with mirage, as people still talk about staff mirage to this day even though it was only good for like 1 day before it was nerfed into oblivion and staff suffered directly as a result. but the fun of that build and the wonder of using a staff is still in the memory of many mirages, and people still ask the question "is staff mirage viable?" on the reddit and the forums despite already knowing the truth of the answer

would you like staff to become a better weapon? either for cosplaying kasmeer purposes or for being a wizardy mirage, doing damage in pve like a condi version of staff ele, or for the rainbow overload created by bifrost?

Staff in general is perfectly fine. It's not a dps weapon, it's a utility weapon. The only thing on staff that really needs adjustment is the phantasm.

What makes you believe it's a bad weapon? It's great weapon.

@Pyroatheist.9031 said:Staff in general is perfectly fine. It's not a dps weapon, it's a utility weapon. The only thing on staff that really needs adjustment is the phantasm.

Chaos Storm and Chaos Armor could both use cd reductions, there's stronger skills with shorter cooldowns than both of them.

As someone who only just started experimenting with staff mirage a week ago I've gone from not enjoying mesmer to thinking of it as highly as my main class. Staff is pretty sweet to be honest and does alot more damage than you give it credit for.

@Aslakh.3072 said:As someone who only just started experimenting with staff mirage a week ago I've gone from not enjoying mesmer to thinking of it as highly as my main class. Staff is pretty sweet to be honest and does alot more damage than you give it credit for.

have fun with it being your main weapon for your mirage. i don't want to ruin your fun but if you go anywhere non-open world with it you will be kicked from everything because there is no point in having it when axe/torch axe/pistol and scepter/torch are just miles better

@phs.6089 said:What makes you believe it's a bad weapon? It's great weapon.

it's just slow and sluggish, especially the auto attack

@"Pyroatheist.9031" said:Staff in general is perfectly fine. It's not a dps weapon, it's a utility weapon. The only thing on staff that really needs adjustment is the phantasm.

why do there have to be distinctions between "dps weapon" and "utility weapon"? why can't there just be weapons? this distinction would make sense if staff was only a weapon to a new spec focused on utility and support but its not, and neither is it an obviously defensive weapon like a shield. yet with a weapon like a shield, chrono does top tier damage with it and provides amazing utility even when not built for damage, something staff will never be able to do because of all of its underlying flaws

@bara yaoi.3824Since I use staff I obviously wouldnt mind it getting buffs or becoming better, it would hardly impact me negatively, I just didn't feel it was neccersary. The thing is that staff is 1200 range and outside of elementalist staff and deadeye rifle weapons at that range aren't competetive in a melee stacking playstyle and really shouldn't be. Elementalist staff has since been heavily nerfed and deadeye requires self rooting to the spot which would kill the mirage staff gameplay. As someone who enjoys its current gameplay the concern is that for it to be buffed what must be lost to balance this? And while I agree axe, a melee weapon, is better damage when you don't need range, I have yet to see any sceptor build even marginally as good as staff or accepted into raids/fractals.

@bara yaoi.3824 said:

@"Pyroatheist.9031" said:Staff in general is perfectly fine. It's not a dps weapon, it's a utility weapon. The only thing on staff that really needs adjustment is the phantasm.

The reason there have to be distinctions is for the balance of the game. A weapon that has powerful mobility and disruption tools should not also have powerful damage, that would make it unbalanced. Game balance is achieved by equalizing the overall power level of all weapons, but weapons still need to be distinctive in their own ways. This means that some weapons will be more powerful for dps, but less powerful for utility or defense. Likewise, some weapons will be more powerful for utility or defense, but less powerful for dps. Thus, balance.

i think staff is extremely strong as it is.

staff is great as it is . It is one of the stronger mesmer weapon. I find staff much stronger than gs

I just want a few small improvements (mainly staff 4):

Staff 4 reduced cooldown to 25s base and provides 0.25s or 0.5s blur on activation.

Staff 3 faster phantasm beam channel and slightly buffed damage.

Staff auto 15-25% projectile speed boost.

Staff 5 potential reduced cooldown to 30s base.

I'd rather want devs to return to a stricter "weapon type" policy.

That is to say, I want weapon types to have an identity. Staff for example clearly shows an AE-centric focus between Necromancer, Elementalist, Guardian and - partially - even Mesmer with the bouncing main attack. Of course, I have no idea how Daredevil and Revenant fit in there, and that's where I have an issue with modern weapon design.

It seems nowadays weapons have to be as generalist as possible, and that's... lame, really. Boring. Might as well decouple the skills from the weapon, and make the type of weapon you use just a cosmetic thing.

@Carighan.6758 said:Of course, I have no idea how Daredevil and Revenant fit in there, and that's where I have an issue with modern weapon design.

To be fair, Daredevil follows a very standard archetype of wielding a staff as a martial arts weapon, which is a totally separate but equally appropriate use. Revenant is kinda an oddball where it falls somewhere in-between the physical staff usage and caster weapon idea.

Staff is a two-handed weapon that's getting carried by 2 skills.

Honestly while I think Staff is in a fine spot, I think there changes could potentially make it a more interesting weapon. Either way I'm fine with it.

Indifferent, because while I'd never turn down a buff, staff is my favourite Mesmer weapon. Sure, a projectile speed increase would be nice (trident AA is amazing because of its speed), but as it is it's one of only two base Mes weapons that mean your clones can actually do damage, via conditions, it doesn't need much improvement imo.

Staff is a really great weapon but a shave from the cd on Chaos Armor and Chaos Storm wouldn't be bad.

Buff it and then it becomes OP as hell. So for the sake of balance, please no.They might do a bit of tinkering with the next release of elite specs, though.

I love the staff. I always play staff/staff mirage in PvE and it's so incredible fun and also strong.

However, I do think that it needs some adjustments:

• Winds of Chaos should move faster by 50% at least. This projectile is like the slowest one in the entire game. People can literally outrun a lot of projectiles when they run away which is annoying.
• iWarlock really lacks dmg if you use staff as power weapon ever since the nerf that was unjustified in my opinion.
• Chaos Armor is arguably one of the worst skills of the weapon. It just gives you chaos armor and pulses out one random condition if enemies are close. Chaos armor is not strong to begin with and you can always combo phase retreat in chaos storm to get it as well. That's why I think having it as a dedicated weapon skill is just a waste of a skill slot. People say giving it a short evade would make it better.

But I'd rather have a complete rework of this skill to make it useful. Or give the mesmer a pulsing aura that puts out more conditions in a larger area. Kinda like a little scourge desert shroud.

• Chaos storm should have a 5-10 second shorter cooldown and always daze on the initial impact. The RNG factor of this skill can make it really frustrating to play.

@bara yaoi.3824 said:

@Aslakh.3072 said:As someone who only just started experimenting with staff mirage a week ago I've gone from not enjoying mesmer to thinking of it as highly as my main class. Staff is pretty sweet to be honest and does alot more damage than you give it credit for.

@phs.6089 said:What makes you believe it's a bad weapon? It's great weapon.

@"Pyroatheist.9031" said:Staff in general is perfectly fine. It's not a dps weapon, it's a utility weapon. The only thing on staff that really needs adjustment is the phantasm.

@Aslakh.3072 said:As someone who only just started experimenting with staff mirage a week ago I've gone from not enjoying mesmer to thinking of it as highly as my main class. Staff is pretty sweet to be honest and does alot more damage than you give it credit for.

@phs.6089 said:What makes you believe it's a bad weapon? It's great weapon.

@"Pyroatheist.9031" said:Staff in general is perfectly fine. It's not a dps weapon, it's a utility weapon. The only thing on staff that really needs adjustment is the phantasm.

Why do there have to be dps or utility weapons? Obviously because there would be little advantage to using axe, for instance, if you could deal the same damage with staff, which has far better defense/utility options as well as 1200 range.

The fact is melee weapons with low utility should always deal better damage than a weapon like staff.

Also, it's not as if staff doesn't see some use in other game modes. PvP and wvw builds often use staff as a compliment to a melee set.

I just want more like.... visceral combat animations on some races for the AA, phant summon... and maybe Chaos Storm?

I realize it's "winds" of chaos, but could we get a higher impact or wind speed beyond a gentle breeze?

Mechanically it's fine.

@"Carighan.6758" said:I'd rather want devs to return to a stricter "weapon type" policy.

That is to say, I want weapon types to have an identity. Staff for example clearly shows an AE-centric focus between Necromancer, Elementalist, Guardian and - partially - even Mesmer with the bouncing main attack. Of course, I have no idea how Daredevil and Revenant fit in there, and that's where I have an issue with modern weapon design.

It seems nowadays weapons have to be as generalist as possible, and that's... lame, really. Boring. Might as well decouple the skills from the weapon, and make the type of weapon you use just a cosmetic thing.

There is value in a generalist weapon design to allow it to play off of more then one trait line. Mesmer doesn't "see" this problem because of how its power is loaded into Traits and Shatters. But if you look at a class like Ranger, which is constantly having to fight with Traits to make its Weapons function decently, this problem stands out in like mushroom cloud. Great Sword is arguably the best weapon for both of these classes, is a generalist weapon to both, and posses both high utility and high damage; but the reason they're rarely made meta is due to Traits not properly capitalizing on what they offer. But Mesmer can get away with this due the nature of Phantasms, while Ranger can not due to having most of its power loaded directly into its weapon skills.

Out of all the classes, Guardian has the least number of synergy problems due the huge amount of overlap with its traits, weapons and utility skills. Every choice it makes is largely positive, as most weapons are good enough to use without traits, become directly enhanced by traits, and indirectly enhanced by traits with categorical types. Like the above to 2 examples, Great Sword on Guardian is also one of its most generalist weapons, but has extremely good trait synergy to improve it both directly and indirect; making it the most used weapon on the class. Staff Ele is almost the inverse of this (and ultimately an edge case), as Staff is the quintessential Generalist weapon, but is meta due to all the other weapons being robbed of their functional synergy. Prior to many of the nerfs, Ele itself was a generalist class, and could make any weapon versatile through the Attunements.... today thats no longer the case.

This game's buildcraft works in a way where 30-50% of a build's potential (damage, utility, etc) comes out of its traits. Since weapons are the primary method of delivering damage and effects, but not always the main source of it, having weapons being able to interact with multiple trait lines and build concepts is the way to keep them relevant in any given meta. You're definitely in a good spot where theres a good reason to take the same weapon in 5 different builds, and not just because your other options are not worth using. Having overly specific weapons is how Rev got into the builtcraft nightmare it sits in..... and I hardly call what it does "exciting" or "fun to play". And more then any other class, that one would had benefited the most from having all of its weapons considered generalist.

If ANET buffs staff, they're likely gonna over-buff it. And then instead of reverting back the change, they'll nerf something else on it, once the nerf cries start. Have you heard of the line "Didn't realize what you had, until you lost it"? Well that's staff, don't give them an excuse to nerf it into oblivion!!!

I do not think it is a high priority or needs any buff in PvP.

In PvE, AA projectile needs to be much faster, and maybe increased damage.

I started playing around with staff in a Chrono build for PvP and I find the weapon to be a lot of fun. Not nearly as fun as how Mesmer make's use of its greatsword but still a solid enough weapon that I've been able to eek out a few wins in PvP despite being new to the profession. Compared to the other professions I think it is one of the better uses of the weapon. I'd have to say the clear winner is Elementalist staff but I can see Mesmer staff being a solid #3 spot staff weapon. It doesn't feel as useless to me as the staff for Guardian and Necromancer does (though I'm not saying Guardian staff is bad perse just that I'm underwhelmed).