A ranged weapon should never do more single target damage than a melee one.

Staff is already an aoe powerhouse. Now buff sword skills to outrank it in single target/3 target cleave.

Don't nerf staff. Buff sword, dagger, and scepter. They just don't get anywhere close to staff.

No, they should nerf staff. With the power creep the expansion added all of the old content is utter faceroll.

It's not that simple, if the staff had nothing but damage, sure I could see it having very good single target and AoE damage. But it doesn't only have damage, it has several viable escape and kiting skills , some incredible sustain, and of course renewing stamina. And it has all that because the devs have ever been trying to reconcile two irreconcilable playstyles on the same weapon; that of the "archmage", an ele with huge weighty high damage spells on high CDs, and a supportive backline playstyle that heals and disrupts. And specing for either of those playstyles leaves you with too much of the advantages of the other.

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:No, they should nerf staff. With the power creep the expansion added all of the old content is utter faceroll.

If they nerf staff, ele has no competitive builds, period. Dagger has been nerfed to irrelevance as has scepter.

All non staff power builds can barely break 30k DPS.

@Zenith.7301 said:

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:No, they should nerf staff. With the power creep the expansion added all of the old content is utter faceroll.

Thinking like this is terribly detrimental to proper build development. Staff DPS is clearly overperforming after the introduction of the new traits. Even if staff may not need direct nerfs, the new traits should be nerfed/changed while other weapons should get direct buffs simultaneously. That's how you close the gap between builds.

@Shadowflare.2759 said:

@Zenith.7301 said:

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:No, they should nerf staff. With the power creep the expansion added all of the old content is utter faceroll.

Staff is useless in PvP and has been getting worse in WvW. In PvE it only shines on large golems. The obvious solution is not to nerf staff but to standardize the damage on all size targets.

Moreover you can leave staff alone and simply make it so the ele can't pick up weapons he conjures for others himself.

Staff doesn't outdamage the other weapons in single-target unless that single target has a large hitbox. Anything-But-Staff Condi is competitive with it. No need to nerf anything, maybe buff Dagger and Scepter Air a little.

@Zenith.7301 said:

@Shadowflare.2759 said:

@Zenith.7301 said:

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:No, they should nerf staff. With the power creep the expansion added all of the old content is utter faceroll.

Nothing you said here contradicts my point. I said that the problem isn't necessarily staff itself but the lazy traits and the bad scaling on other weapons. I'm just repeating myself at this point but: staff may not need direct nerfs but certainly the traits that enabled this new DPS do need to be nerfed/changed ALONGSIDE buffs to other weapons, especially sword.

@Zenith.7301 said:

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:No, they should nerf staff. With the power creep the expansion added all of the old content is utter faceroll.

power sword on small is hitting nearly 30k (i think i can hit the 30k) for me. 33k on large. It's not optimal, but still usable. And I'm certainly not the best, but decently skilled so maybe others can get more. I'm too rusty.

@Raif.9507 said:power sword on small is hitting nearly 30k (i think i can hit the 30k) for me. 33k on large. It's not optimal, but still usable. And I'm certainly not the best, but decently skilled so maybe others can get more. I'm too rusty.

30k compared to the 37-39k of guardian/soulbeast/scourge, and those are just PoF ones. Condi PS still does 36k benchmarks and power dragonhunter and daredevil do more than that.

Ele provides no utility whatsoever but damage. It's the lowest HP, lowest armor class in the game.

In sum, its melee build should be at the top of the pecking order considering its fragility and lack of utility.

@Zenith.7301 said:

@Raif.9507 said:power sword on small is hitting nearly 30k (i think i can hit the 30k) for me. 33k on large. It's not optimal, but still usable. And I'm certainly not the best, but decently skilled so maybe others can get more. I'm too rusty.

Power creep is not relative to other classes. If other classes are hitting for nearly 40k, then they need nerfs, too. You've got to look at the large picture here: everything melts in seconds and the game isn't fun when that happens.

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

@Zenith.7301 said:

@Raif.9507 said:power sword on small is hitting nearly 30k (i think i can hit the 30k) for me. 33k on large. It's not optimal, but still usable. And I'm certainly not the best, but decently skilled so maybe others can get more. I'm too rusty.

That's fine and dandy in the fantasy land where you believe they will nerf all classes down to 30k. It didn't happen in HoT, and it won't happen here.

You ought to specify sustained damage vs spike damage.

I think scepter needs the most help for PvE. Most weapons that are single target just aren't suitable for PvE.

From a WvW standpoint, staff and dagger see use but scepter is rare. The main thing to keep in mind is keeping scepter burst manageable in PvP.

@Zenith.7301 said:

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

@Zenith.7301 said:

@Raif.9507 said:power sword on small is hitting nearly 30k (i think i can hit the 30k) for me. 33k on large. It's not optimal, but still usable. And I'm certainly not the best, but decently skilled so maybe others can get more. I'm too rusty.

No, there's nothing preventing the devs from nerfing the classes to reign them in now. Whether it happened in the past or not is irrelevant.

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

@Zenith.7301 said:

@Blood Red Arachnid.2493 said:

@Zenith.7301 said:

@Raif.9507 said:power sword on small is hitting nearly 30k (i think i can hit the 30k) for me. 33k on large. It's not optimal, but still usable. And I'm certainly not the best, but decently skilled so maybe others can get more. I'm too rusty.

Actually it's quite relevant.It's the pattern you look at when figuring out how the devs change skills.

We can look atRTL changeRing of Fire changeDragons tooth changeLightning FlashChanges made to power revChanges to NecroChanges to Warrior.

All of the changes to these classes have been severe enough to warrant a complete shift in what they are brought in for and/or if people will even play said classes or use specific weapons and/or skills.

Anets track record has been consistent

Why not?

If anything, shouldn't melee have inherent cleave which ranged should not have? That'd make more sense given how GW2's combat already works.

@Zenith.7301 said:

@Raif.9507 said:power sword on small is hitting nearly 30k (i think i can hit the 30k) for me. 33k on large. It's not optimal, but still usable. And I'm certainly not the best, but decently skilled so maybe others can get more. I'm too rusty.

You are right on many accounts, sword power DPS isn't nearly what it should be and is easily outstripped by pretty much any of the optimal meta builds. Sword doesn't provide competitive DPS, CC, boons, or any utility beyond damage. With offhand dagger you can say there's some CC, but my rotation for hitting that 30k dps doesn't go into earth at all so it will severely tank that damage.

I don't 100% buy into the lowest HP/armor class in the game excuse in raids mainly because of the prevalence of support classes that provide all the healing/aegis/distorts/protection to offset that. It definitely applies in other modes though. Sword does need a boost, there is no arguing against it as even in PvP it isn't competitive.

I was mainly offering a benchmark to show where power was at for small/large in power form for the discussion as I've been seeing people just say "Sword power dps is trash" but never offer a number so we can place it on the whole spectrum to see just how trash it actually is

Staff is a melee weapon: you need to stay close to your foe/s to get them hit by your aoe fire fields. I would rather see some nice buffs for staff. Scepter, daggers and sword can be used as power, condi or hybrid (Scepter condi is strong enough for pve btw) weapons, while Staff is mostly used as Power only weapon.

@Sifu.9745 said:Staff is a melee weapon: you need to stay close to your foe/s to get them hit by your aoe fire fields. I would rather see some nice buffs for staff. Scepter, daggers and sword can be used as power, condi or hybrid (Scepter condi is strong enough for pve btw) weapons, while Staff is mostly used as Power only weapon.

Staff..melee? What :D everything is kinda melee on pve but its different story in wvw or PvP

I about choked when he said you needed to be in melee for the fire fields to hit, as if those wide ass ranged aoe had a range limitation LOL

@Infusion.7149 said:I think scepter needs the most help for PvE. Most weapons that are single target just aren't suitable for PvE.

Agree that it's weak in meta-supported conditions. Still, I tend to prefer Sc/Wh Tempest for most PvE, where I'm usually running around without meta support. Thinking on that, I prefer a status quo where different weapons fit different niches. Make some weapons better at stacking their own boons, others incapable of it.

Since we focus so heavily on raids, despite the small population enjoying them, turn the attention there, not toward the weapons. If staff is the only choice for large-hitbox immobile targets, make more raids with small-hitbox mobile targets so that more choices are viable. Better yet, mix in multiple elements so that there is never a perfect choice or that you have to switch weapons to be the most effective.

@Zenith.7301 said:I about choked when he said you needed to be in melee for the fire fields to hit, as if those wide kitten ranged aoe had a range limitation LOL

Off course you don't need to be in melee, but if your target is moving towards you or running away from you, you won't do much dmg with your fire fields from 1200 range, right? If you stay close (or inside) to your fire fields then you will keep your foe/s inside your fire fields, right? You want to keep foes inside Meteor Shower and Lava Font, don't you? Have you ever play as a Staff ele? I guess not, L2P first, before you comment.Oh, and who cares about swords anyway.

@Zenith.7301 said:Staff is already an aoe powerhouse. Now buff sword skills to outrank it in single target/3 target cleave.

Don't nerf staff. Buff sword, dagger, and scepter. They just don't get anywhere close to staff.

So why dose this though seem to only apply to ele there are many other classes who have much better ranged and its on aoe of 5 targets.If your talking about pve and your fighting one mob (a boss) what is the point of aoe if your talking about wvw / spvp then yes staff is made for aoe dmg and its a couple joke currently in these 2 formats.

@Zenith.7301 said:I about choked when he said you needed to be in melee for the fire fields to hit, as if those wide kitten ranged aoe had a range limitation LOL

...... fire fields that ele has on staff have a 180radius....you can literally walk out of them before you take a tone of damage, and for them to do decent damage your opponent needs to either be stunned for 3s ,immobilized, or sleep. ( and in PvE you just kite a mob to stay in fire fields anyway, and you do in fact do that in melee or 240-300u range)