What ist the purpose of staff?

[LucianDK.8615]

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@"LucianDK.8615" said:But tagging remains just an utility purpose of the staff, not something youd use anywere else but mass events as a reaper. Thats what im saying, it has no other purpose because of too low damage. Completely poor for you alone in open world, or fractals/raids because it is a significantly low contribution.

Again, not every player's fun in the game depend on damage value output. Even for soloing champion/elite the staff hold value despite not being optimal for damage. Players in fractal and raid follow rigid build that are focused on being the most effective into a specific array of professions, there is no room for personnal gameplay enjoyment, in these 2 gamemodes you don't main a weapon, you just play the weapon that fit into the "meta".

However, as you know, scourge can be a healer (just like core and reaper). Staff can easily sustain perma regen for 5 allies, staff blast into well of blood can also cleanse condition in an area all while dealing damage and controling foes through chill/fear. And this is already enough to be considered as a good main weapon for a healer.

Now that last part is useful, it was what I was trying to get here.

[XECOR.2814]

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@"LucianDK.8615" said:But tagging remains just an utility purpose of the staff, not something youd use anywere else but mass events as a reaper. Thats what im saying, it has no other purpose because of too low damage. Completely poor for you alone in open world, or fractals/raids because it is a significantly low contribution.

Again, not every player's fun in the game depend on damage value output. Even for soloing champion/elite the staff hold value despite not being optimal for damage. Players in fractal and raid follow rigid build that are focused on being the most effective into a specific array of professions, there is no room for personnal gameplay enjoyment, in these 2 gamemodes you don't main a weapon, you just play the weapon that fit into the "meta".

However, as you know, scourge can be a healer (just like core and reaper). Staff can easily sustain perma regen for 5 allies, staff blast into well of blood can also cleanse condition in an area all while dealing damage and controling foes through chill/fear. And this is already enough to be considered as a good main weapon for a healer.

How about letting staff do that but via different mechanics which is not marks. How about that?

[Famine.7915]

I use it purely as self support. I use it to transfer conditions if I need. Chill a distant foe trying to flee, or chain a fear. I never rely on staff solely. I will always use shroud skills until I can swap out of staff once I have used what I needed from it.

[LucianDK.8615]

Do people find any use for staff in pve beside tagging? Sounds like its only really liked in pvp/wvw

[Anchoku.8142]

@LucianDK.8615 said:Do people find any use for staff in pve beside tagging? Sounds like its only really liked in pvp/wvw

For PvE, in general, staff is an anti-dps weapon. Aside from tagging events, it is rarely used for anything but Life Force generation. For many years, axe was too weak to compete with staff's utility on power-builds in PvE but that changed with Heart of Thorns and the repeated buffing axe received. Staff may see more frequent use on condi-dps builds, though, because there is no alternative to scepter for condi-dps despite its lower LF generation but people often never switch from scepter if they are not desperate for LF. Using staff means losing almost all damage output.

[Ghostt.1293]

i remember those days that axe was called trash but had the best animations...

[killfil.3472]

I feels bland, doesn't it?4 single-strike circles, and then its down to a less-than-pleasing auto-attack for a few moments…

I mean, whenever we use an ability, a ghostly scythe blade appears on our staff ; what if we used it?For example, Swing the blade in a wide arc before you and strike fear into enemies struck by the necrotic wave ; the closer they are, the longer the fear. But the farther they are, the greater the damage :D

Or the auto-attack could be changed to the following ; Sweeping motions like the daredevil's, but each swing launches forwards a spining scythe blade and the final long-spin of the staff builds up a more powerful blade. The first 2 blades fired out are horizontal with a wider hitbox, and the last built-up one is vertical but inflicts more damage (and possibly a condition to reinforce the hybrid aspect of the weapon).

Also I'd say it needs a review on its numbers… Both the #2 and #5 have very low damage (and so does "dark path", a design choice I have yet to comprehend…) And very little payoff for landing them. I understand that the low cooldown of 5-ish seconds on the #2 is nice for keeping AoE pressure, but the very low amount of condition (and the regeneration? I would've assumed it would steal health per target struck instead, considering the general selfishness of the class design) as well as its low power damage has me never using it after dumping it once with all other skills at once ; I just feel like Auto-attacking is more rewarding, even on condition builds :/And as for the #5, That cooldown is massive for what it does ; a single second of fear on up to 5 targets with very little damage…

[Umut.5471]

AOE tagging in Open world/WvW