Those Staff Autos, Though...

I've made a couple of posts about this in the distant pass, but I just really don't understand why Fireball is the only autoattack worth a damn on Staff. Sure, water heals, but it sacrifices too much damage for the amount it heals, which only serves the purpose of making Water totally unusable when solo. Chain Lightning fails to compete with Fireball in all but the most unusual circumstances, and the rest of the utility on Air doesn't compensate. And don't even get me started on Stoning.

They're just all really bland, and all but Fireball are also really weak. Is there any chance we'll see these updated in the future?

Because the idea of Staff is to stack your damage with Lava Font and Meteor Shower. And because a weapon where the auto is your best damage skill would be extremely boring and failed design.

Well revs are pretty much it. Auto atk is the main source of dmg. And earth auto is very effective, its pure weakness stack.

@Feanor.2358 said:Because the idea of Staff is to stack your damage with Lava Font and Meteor Shower. And because a weapon where the auto is your best damage skill would be extremely boring and failed design.

A well-functioning auto attack is critical for a weapon to be generally usable. Weapons with bad auto attacks automatically become second-rate and highly situational in just about any PvE content, which is why so many Staff Eles camp Fire in most situations, which is actually what's boring. Not having useful autoattacks.

I find it ironic that you're calling effective autoattacks allowing you to properly attunement swap "boring" while suggesting that you should play Staff by camping Fire.

I'm not suggesting you should camp Fire and it's not how Staff is played. It wasn't played like that with Tempest, and it isn't with Weaver either. They both use as little autos as possible, too.

Fire is only camped in fractals. In raids, air is used as well and FGS is mostly utilised as a cover for auto-attacks. It adds a layer of complexity, even if a tad shallow. Earth AA helps break bars with the weakness debuff as well.

It seems strange to make this thread now though, with Weaver readily available, where auto-attacks have become even more marginalised by dual skill spam.

If you're camping Fire, you're doing a poor job, period. It doesn't matter if it's fractals, raids, or story instances. You can do it, but it's bad.

In any case, there is a lot of good utility and CC to be found outside of Fire, so pure camping will be costly. Weavers need to switch fairly regularly to proc key traits. Tempest damage also benefits against large hitboxes if you hop over to Air. Conjures can cover damage for Staff outside of Fire and should definitely be used if you're attuned to Air and waiting on your Overload.

I agree with OP. They could do some minor buffs to water, earth and air autos.

Earth projectile speed could be a bit higher.Air could cause 1 stack of vulnerability.

@xDudisx.5914 said:I agree with OP. They could do some minor buffs to water, earth and air autos.

Earth projectile speed could be a bit higher.Air could cause 1 stack of vulnerability.

@ wvw i often just don´t hit with auto attack because of moving enemies O.o .. no "out of range" no "missed" no nothing .. just hitting the poin where my target was maybe 1 sec before :(

[staff, WvW] To me AA are very useful since with Weaver we have to wait 4 sec (or 3.5sec) between each attunements. Don't you feel like stuck and eager to switch in weaver after casting all the useful spells you got ?

I agree, staff AA sucks. But I tend to believe that the original designers thought that with 20 weapon skills, people would be rotating around attunements instead of camping 1 and spamming AA which is of course, not really viable anymore now that we have Tempest and Weaver.

@Kyon.9735 said:I agree, staff AA sucks. But I tend to believe that the original designers thought that with 20 weapon skills, people would be rotating around attunements instead of camping 1 and spamming AA which is of course, not really viable anymore now that we have Tempest and Weaver.

The main problem I see with this design is that Fire then by necessity operates as your default attunement, because you take too much of a DPS hit staying in the others. You might swap around to get some of the other benefits, but you always fall back to Fire for damage and spend disproportionate time there.

To me, that's just a bad design, and it's almost entirely a product of how weak the non-Fire autos are. I essentially can't play a water, earth, or air mage because they're flat-out less effective than a fire mage.

I would add some burning on Fire aa and reduce casting time and direct dmg for 25%, i would add 5 sec of Fury + Ferocity on Air aa. Water is ok, Earth aa could also see some improvements.

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

The main problem I see with this design is that Fire then by necessity operates as your default attunement, because you take too much of a DPS hit staying in the others. You might swap around to get some of the other benefits, but you always fall back to Fire for damage and spend disproportionate time there.

To me, that's just a bad design, and it's almost entirely a product of how weak the non-Fire autos are. I essentially can't play a water, earth, or air mage because they're flat-out less effective than a fire mage.

I think your issue here is that you're thinking of an ele's weapon as ONE weapon, where in fact it is essentially four weapons in one. Do all of the other professions' weapons do the same DPS? So Guardian staff, hammer, sword+shield... all the same DPS? You don't lose any in switching to the alternate weapon set you have equipped?

Yes, if you switch to another attunement, you lose the DPS of fire. But that's the whole point. You want healing, you give up DPS to get healing. You want some break ability, you have to switch out of fire.

@pdboddy.4162 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

The main problem I see with this design is that Fire then by necessity operates as your default attunement, because you take too much of a DPS hit staying in the others. You might swap around to get some of the other benefits, but you always fall back to Fire for damage and spend disproportionate time there.

To me, that's just a bad design, and it's almost entirely a product of how weak the non-Fire autos are. I essentially can't play a water, earth, or air mage because they're flat-out less effective than a fire mage.

Strawman argument drawing flawed conclusions. I never said they should do the same DPS. I said the balance between damage and utility needs to be better. In most cases, it is. Does Guardian's hammer do less damage than greatsword because it offers better utility? Yes. Does it do so much worse damage that you can't functionally use it in most situations? No. Ditto for the Mace, which heals.

In cases where it is like the staff attunements, it's a problem that needs to be fixed. This is why Water, Air, and Earth are kind of awful. Their utility is useful, but they sacrifice too much damage to get it, perpetually pushing you back into fire. I fail to see any useful purpose for that whatsoever.

@Einlanzer.1627 said:In cases where it is like the staff attunements, it's a problem that needs to be fixed. This is why Water, Air, and Earth are kind of awful. Their utility is useful, but they sacrifice too much damage to get it, perpetually pushing you back into fire. I fail to see any useful purpose for that whatsoever.

To keep you from camping in one spec if you want utilities? If all you care about is DPS, then of course you'll camp fire. If you actually want the different utilities, then you'll switch around. It's not like you have to stay in that attunment for long after using the utilities you wanted.

Perhaps you think that you lose too much DPS to use other utilities, but that's just your opinion. Which obviously differs from Anet's.

EDIT: And if it's not about DPS, why are you asking for the auto-attacks to be buffed? Why are you not arguing for the utilities to be buffed?

And I fall back on the comparison to other profession's specs. Ele's weapon is actually 4. Some of the attunements do less damage for more utility.

@pdboddy.4162 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:In cases where it is like the staff attunements, it's a problem that needs to be fixed. This is why Water, Air, and Earth are kind of awful. Their utility is useful, but they sacrifice too much damage to get it, perpetually pushing you back into fire. I fail to see any useful purpose for that whatsoever.

That's exactly the point. It's not that you don't have to stay in the other attunements, it's that the game overly-penalizes you for doing so, yet it doesn't do that for Fire. In a nutshell, Ele staff is like this for most situations (the only exception is if you're running Water as a healer in a full party)

Optimal - Staying in Fire most of the time, but swapping around for various utility when neededFunctional - Mostly camping FireBarely functional - Swapping around as needed, but staying in anything other than Fire for extended periodsCompletely broken and unusable - Mostly camping anything but Fire

In other words - Fire is overtuned and everything else is undertuned. How do you not see that as a problem? This is actually not how most other classes/weapons work. You used the example of the Guardian - the Guardian hammer and mace, which offer various healing and utility, still do enough damage for them to be good in a lot of situations. That is simply not the case for attunements other than Fire.

No offense, but you just seem to not really be getting it.

@Einlanzer.1627 said:Optimal - Staying in Fire most of the time, but swapping around for various utility when neededFunctional - Mostly camping FireBarely functional - Swapping around as needed, but staying in anything other than Fire for extended periodsCompletely broken and unusable - Mostly camping anything but Fire

In other words - Fire is overtuned and everything else is undertuned. How do you not see that as a problem? This is actually not how most other classes/weapons work. You used the example of the Guardian - the Guardian hammer and mace, which offer various healing and utility, still do enough damage for them to be good in a lot of situations. That is simply not the case for attunements other than Fire.

No offense, but you just seem to not really be getting it.

I think it's you who doesn't get it.

Do you think staff elementalist has poor DPS? I'm pretty sure, overall, that the answer is no. Staff ele has decent DPS, at least for PvE. Does it really matter that most of the DPS comes from fire? Why?

@pdboddy.4162 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:Optimal - Staying in Fire most of the time, but swapping around for various utility when neededFunctional - Mostly camping FireBarely functional - Swapping around as needed, but staying in anything other than Fire for extended periodsCompletely broken and unusable - Mostly camping anything but Fire

In other words - Fire is overtuned and everything else is undertuned. How do you not see that as a problem? This is actually not how most other classes/weapons work. You used the example of the Guardian - the Guardian hammer and mace, which offer various healing and utility, still do enough damage for them to be good in a lot of situations. That is simply not the case for attunements other than Fire.

No offense, but you just seem to not really be getting it.

Do you think that Guardian should be forced to use Greatsword to do decent (not optimal) DPS? would you be down for a massive damage nerf to Guardian Hammer and Mace since they offer utility?

It definitely isn't me who doesn't get it.

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

Do you think that Guardian should be forced to use Greatsword to do decent (not optimal) DPS? would you be down for a massive damage nerf to Guardian Hammer and Mace since they offer utility?

It definitely isn't me who doesn't get it.

Yeah, it is you. You keep focusing on one tiny aspect of the entire whole that is staff.

How many weapons have: two escape skills, the ability to apply burning, crippled, vulnerable, chilled, blind, and immobilized, one reflection skill, blast finishers and fields out the yin-yang, plus good DPS on top of all of that? What two weapons that other classes get even come close to that?

Do you not see how boosting the DPS of air, earth and water AA attacks is an overall DPS buff for elementalist, which would cause all kinds of upset, and push staff ele into OP territory?

Agreed that Fire is the most damage-focused attunements and others should be less damaging than Fire, but offer other utility/conditions/boons. There is nothing wrong with Fire being the most damaging element. However, that doesn't mean that the less-damaging elements should be useless. They should offer appropriate damage considering their ancillary effects.

As is, the damage from staff autoattacks outside of Fire is lacking and could use a bump. They don't need to be good enough to enter the optimum rotation, supported or otherwise, they just need to avoid significantly hindering new and casual players.

@pdboddy.4162 said:

@Einlanzer.1627 said:

Do you think that Guardian should be forced to use Greatsword to do decent (not optimal) DPS? would you be down for a massive damage nerf to Guardian Hammer and Mace since they offer utility?

It definitely isn't me who doesn't get it.

The reason Eles have that stuff is because they have the lowest in game health and armor values, AND their complexity just makes it more difficult to make them perform well. That isn't a counter-argument against the point I'm making.

Their top DPS comes comes almost exclusively from Fire. Swapping out of fire drops your DPS into suboptimal at best, which swiftly turns into terrible the longer you aren't in Fire. All buffing the other attunements' autos would do is make it less punishing to spend more in them as opposed to Fire. I have no idea why that isn't both painfully obvious and desirable for everyone who plays a staff ele.

So, once again, both of your argument are poor.

As a fan of Lightning Rod, I wouldn't mind Staff Air auto to have a disabling effect. ;)

In seriousness, though, I feel the different attunements on Staff should be situational. Fire is good for AoE damage and burning, Air is good for single target damage and control, Earth is good for conditions and group defenses, and Water just makes everyone unkillable... Or just good at healing.

Unfortunately, that would probably require more than just retooling the autoattacks. I do agree that Air, Earth, and Water need better autoattacks.

The only problem with the autos is that air auto is worse single-target dps than fire. Air autos should be single-target as opposed the bad bounce mechanism.

Earth's projectile finisher is nice (at times in the past) in pvp. The healing in water is great for a healing build.