What does Staff DD need to be competitive in spvp?

I've dabbled in staff DD, but don't have a whole lot of experience with it in spvp. In theory, the set seems like it has the potential to be good at sidenoding, as it's actually has tools meant to fight on point (staff 3+4), while still retaining a decent amount of mobility. Admittedly this is something of a dream of mine, you know, being able to perform on a similar role to mesmer, except it's a thief. But the set apparently doesn't measure up against meta builds.

What are everyone's opinions on the shortcomings of the set, and what would it take to either fix or overcome them?

A complete rework, unfortunately.

Why though

Staff is the only set left that still has any kind of respectable damage. And it has so many things that are ALMOST great.

For example, if Vault had its cast time shaved down to 1/2sec, and add a 1/4sec aftercast, it'd still be very punishable if you spam it, but a lot of things would become counter punishable on reaction. That alone would shutdown any build that relies on telegraphed moves.

Likewise staff 2 would be a great burst if only all hits can land reliably. Staff 3 and 4's main mechanics are great, but too expensive due to having to justify everything else loaded on them.

None of those would require an overhaul.

It needs more bad.ass animations

On a serious note:I'd change just about anything on Staff, staff 2,4,5 look good on the paper damage-wise and utility but it is just almost never actually good.

Vault is easy to avoid, to a point that it almost feels like having a moment of reprieve for the enemy, while if it was faster it would be powercrept, I'd just replace it with something that grants the same evade time (1/2) but with lower cast (1/3 -> 1/2), does less dmg but costs 5 ini instead of 6.

Weakening charge locks you in place, takes too long to execute and goes through target like 90% despite Anet claiming they fixed it.

Dust Strike is good but it doesn't fit well with the rest of the staff skills, yes there can or even should be skill doing Blind on staff but it should be done differently, In my opinion in a form of skill with decent/high dmg in melee range.

Debilitating arc is a good skill, but again feels too slow for what was DD expected to be.

I always loved Staff but I stopped playing it in PvP very soon because all the skills simply seem to be clumsy and take too long. Especially when I fight staff DDs that are not just spamming Vault, it is almost saddening, because you can see Staff 3, 4 and 5 coming from miles away, especially 3, because then you have completely uninterruptable window to nuke the Thief.The fact that only Vault and Bound spamming is viable for Staff DD proves how very badly it needs almost complete rework.

@Alatar.7364 said:I always loved Staff but I stopped playing it in PvP very soon because all the skills simply seem to be clumsy and take too long. Especially when I fight staff DDs that are not just spamming Vault, it is almost saddening, because you can see Staff 3, 4 and 5 coming from miles away, especially 3, because then you have completely uninterruptable window to nuke the Thief.

Not disagreeing with everything else you said, but are you aware that staff3 is jump-cancellable to not trigger the roll animation? There's no punish window if you do that, and in that way it's kind of a poor man's mirage cloak.

Reduce the cost of three and four.

4 is a blind with low damage. The cost has absolutely no reason to be that high.

3 is an evasive back role. Again low damage, but it breaks immobolize. Sounds powerful... But there are thieves skills that do this cheaper.

Cast time for 5 is a bit much. Remember that guardian pretty much teleports on your ass and doesn't even give you a chance to react.

Give the reflect to 2 and lower the after cast. Its nice the auto reflects. But you're never triggerring it.

@killy.3278 said:

@"Alatar.7364" said:I always loved Staff but I stopped playing it in PvP very soon because all the skills simply seem to be clumsy and take too long. Especially when I fight staff DDs that are not just spamming Vault, it is almost saddening, because you can see Staff 3, 4 and 5 coming from miles away, especially 3, because then you have completely uninterruptable window to nuke the Thief.

I am aware of that, I meant "especially staff 2" don't know why I wrote 3.

define "competitive" if you mean ranked matches then it's completely viable and it's pretty decent.I think staff is really balanced as a weapon set, pof specs aka meta builds are entirely broken so it will never be as good as them unless they buff it for some random reason.

I would love if they fix weaking charge going through bodies tho, annoying as hell since hot release..

By "competitive" I mean standing shoulder-to-shoulder with D/P and S/D, assuming the current meta permits. For example, on paper a staff dasher build has the tools to decap as well as D/P, +1 on the same level as S/D, and fall somewhere in between for 1v1. But clearly it's not, or we'd see more people running staff builds. So why is that? Is it really just a matter of staff skills being unreliable/too expensive as people said about?

If so, then the fixes doesn't really seem that difficult. Have Weakening Charge use the same target-tracking as Warrior's Bulls Charge so it's reliable (it can do a 180 if your target moves), and raise the ini cost to 4 if needed. Then lower either Debilitating Arc or Dust Strike to 3 ini, buffing both would probably be too much. At that point, staff2 would be a good burst for steal combo or CC setups, and the spec will have an easier time staying in melee. Wouldn't that be enough?

Staff suffers from bad casting delays that prevents a cohesion of skill activation. For instance, Weakening Charge -> Debilitating Arc -> Vault should execute smoothly. Due to the casting delays, it's really slow and clunky. The skills needs to execute as if we have a Lesser Quickness (+25% instead of 50%) just to make the whole combo work smoothly. Even the auto-attack is too slow. The whole animation should be complete in 1s instead of 2s.

This actually goes with all of the Thief's weapon skills. That's why having Quickness up feels more natural. The Thief don't need more damage, just more activation speed with less casting delays.

Other things getting toned down.

Staff daredevil is fine within a proper baseline. If it were to be improved too much, it would become troublesome.

@"killy.3278" said:By "competitive" I mean standing shoulder-to-shoulder with D/P and S/D, assuming the current meta permits. For example, on paper a staff dasher build has the tools to decap as well as D/P, +1 on the same level as S/D, and fall somewhere in between for 1v1. But clearly it's not, or we'd see more people running staff builds. So why is that? Is it really just a matter of staff skills being unreliable/too expensive as people said about?

If so, then the fixes doesn't really seem that difficult. Have Weakening Charge use the same target-tracking as Warrior's Bulls Charge so it's reliable (it can do a 180 if your target moves), and raise the ini cost to 4 if needed. Then lower either Debilitating Arc or Dust Strike to 3 ini, buffing both would probably be too much. At that point, staff2 would be a good burst for steal combo or CC setups, and the spec will have an easier time staying in melee. Wouldn't that be enough?

as I said I personally find Staff very balanced in terms of utility and damage, it's a versatile weapon and I like it.Staff was never "viable" because d/p was pretty popular back then but staff was always there, and it exploded with the acro abomination which was correctly nerfed but I don't know, while your buffs seems pretty ok they will have to buff staff a lot to make it more "competitive" because it's like a 1v1 build but it doesn't have that many favorable matchups so it's kinda weak in that section which is its forte lol

I play it as any other normal thief build by +1 fights but I stay a bit longer in teamfights since I can spam more dodges while doing good damage and a bit more of 1v1 potential at far/home and tbh I don't feel it weak it's just not the best.

@"Elxdark.9702" said:as I said I personally find Staff very balanced in terms of utility and damage, it's a versatile weapon and I like it.Staff was never "viable" because d/p was pretty popular back then but staff was always there, and it exploded with the acro abomination which was correctly nerfed but I don't know, while your buffs seems pretty ok they will have to buff staff a lot to make it more "competitive" because it's like a 1v1 build but it doesn't have that many favorable matchups so it's kinda weak in that section which is its forte lol

I play it as any other normal thief build by +1 fights but I stay a bit longer in teamfights since I can spam more dodges while doing good damage and a bit more of 1v1 potential at far/home and tbh I don't feel it weak it's just not the best.

So I've been playing around with a staff dasher in unranked pretty exclusively since I made this thread to get a better feel of the set. And I think I've pretty much reached the same conclusions as what you've stated. It's decent in the traditional +1/decap role, but the kit doesn't t significantly change any matchups. Thief is so far behind in 1v1 against sidenoders and bunkers, that any buff to make it stand toe to toe with those builds would make thief completely busted against everything else. The base numbers are not even that bad, but when your opponent is running around with 25 might and prot, there's just no contest.

Not being able to reliably hit steal + staff2 to quickly +1 or to turn a fight does hurt a lot. Seems that it only works if the opponent is standing still or running away from you. Any other directional movement will cause at least 1 hit to whiff. Unfortunately the kit has no other skill that combos well with steal, so the value I get out of steal is greatly diminished compared to D/P or S/D. If the ONLY change made to the set is fix staff2, I'd at least consider it on par with D/P.

The kit is a hilarious stomper against inexperienced players though. Anyone who doesn't know how to sidestep Vault just get destroyed. Against good players the fight boils down to using 3+4 to survive long enough to set up Vault, either by counter-punishing longcasting moves or use CC. Scorpion Wire + Vault can actually work well here. Otherwise it can only reliably land if you're +1ing a fight where the opponent's attention is already preoccupied with another teammate.

ah well such is life of thief players