Staff.

[killfil.3472]

Is it not time to rework it?4 single-effect circles is lamentable, and our skills are lamentable compared to the other classes' staff skills.It has so much potential already too. That shadowy scythe blade we summon could be so much more than just a visual effect.

[Dadnir.5038]

Don't give them bad idea. The last year proved that ANet reworking the necromancer's weapon is more likely to end up with a result worse than what it was before.

[KrHome.1920]

Staff is pretty good on condi necro. Bleeds, poison and fear are decent, the condi transfer is always welcome and the life force generation is sick (almost broken) when soul marks and fear of death are traited. You get the weapon with the most life force generation then. Both traits are a no brainer for condi builds and so do not have tradeoffs. Not to mention it's all unblockable...

[Teratus.2859]

Imo what Staff really needs is for skills 2-4 to have varied ammunition, Skill 2 gets 3 marks while Skill 3 and 4 get 2 marks.Likewise they should get a staff trait in one of their specializations that when taken changes marks so that they no longer activate when a enemy steps on them but rather Necromancer gains a new Utility skill Order of Pain that when activated detonates all marks that Necromancer has currently placed on the ground.

This way Necros could choose to to effectively create a minefield or they could stack their marks on a singular point as a massive spike trap and detonate it at will, choosing thier moment.

The downside is you'd need to sacrifice a utility skill for Order of Pain and this should obviously be a trait with a heavy trade off, maybe replacing Unholy Sanctuary as a grandmaster in the death magic line and Unholy Sanctuary becoming a Master trait replacing Deadly Strength.Deadly Strength then merges into Corrupter's Fervor making the Grandmaster stronger, the Death Magic line more appealing and making the staff more powerful and the trade off for staff trait more significant.

[KrHome.1920]

If you give it ammunition there will be way too much condi stacking. No one will need scourge shades anymore.

[Antycypator.9874]

I'm waiting for complete rework, drawing useless circles on the ground seems pretty lame. Just make it a good looking weapon that can deal more than 1k dps in condi. Sometimes axe's AA is stronger than condi necro/scourge.

[ZDragon.3046]

Staff does need some changes but im not so sure i would give it a total rework.

Give staff an auto attack chain.

Best thing they can do for staff is take the life force from soul marks and make that baselineAll marks now generate 3% life force at abaseMark of blood no longer grants regeneration and just immediately leeches a bit of hp for each foe hit in the area (similar to focus 4 hp leech)Chillbains pulses 1 additional time after a small delayPutrid mark remains as isReapers mark remains as is

Soul marks now makes marks unblockable and reduces staff recharge by 10% +2% for each target hit (similar to the way the reaper shout trait works.)

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

@ZDragon.3046 said:Staff does need some changes but im not so sure i would give it a total rework.

Give staff an auto attack chain.

Best thing they can do for staff is take the life force from soul marks and make that baselineAll marks now generate 3% life force at abaseMark of blood no longer grants regeneration and just immediately leeches a bit of hp for each foe hit in the area (similar to focus 4 hp leech)Chillbains pulses 1 additional time after a small delayPutrid mark remains as isReapers mark remains as is

Soul marks now makes marks unblockable and reduces staff recharge by 10% +2% for each target hit (similar to the way the reaper shout trait works.)

These are fairly great suggestions, I'd like to build off of them, so in addition to what you mention I'd recommend the following:

I would make Soul Marks do a flat 20% reduction of CDs like other weapon skill CD traits.

I recommend that Chilblains pulse its effects once per second over 4 seconds with the strike damage on the first pulse. Soul Marks makes the initial strike unblockable.

Give Putrid Mark an Ammo system. 5s CD between uses, 2 uses, use recharge of 25s. This is so you can't double blast the Chilblains field, but you could lay down another field from a utility to blast.

For AA chain you suggested but did not elaborate on:

This is based on the current AA being hit 1 in the chain, visually think of that hand raking the target or something like that.2nd hit should be little to no delay, similar damage to 1st hit, no LF gain, inflicts poison for 4s.3rd hit should also be little to no delay, about 15% more damage than the previous hit, no LF gain, inflicts chill for 2s.

The little delay on AA2 and AA3 should just be the after cast of the previous hit in the chain. This is because the current AA is the first hit, is slow AF, and why not, I can dream. Of course I'd take a better single hit AA that hits quicker.

[Dadnir.5038]

@ZDragon.3046 said:Mark of blood no longer grants regeneration and just immediately leeches a bit of hp for each foe hit in the area (similar to focus 4 hp leech)

And this is exactly the kind of idea that justify why I do not want ANet to touch the necromancer's staff. Life siphon is hand down one of the worst mechanism in this game. We shouldn't ask ANet to put more of this on the already poor kit of the necromancer. Your suggestion is basically a support and damage nerf.

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:I would make Soul Marks do a flat 20% reduction of CDs like other weapon skill CD traits.

The CD reduction have already been made baseline long ago, any suggestion for a trait giving back a CD redution will most likely be followed by an increase to the base CD of the skills.

[killfil.3472]

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@ZDragon.3046 said:Staff does need some changes but im not so sure i would give it a total rework.

Give staff an auto attack chain.

Best thing they can do for staff is take the life force from soul marks and make that baselineAll marks now generate 3% life force at abase

Mark of blood

no longer grants regeneration and just immediately leeches a bit of hp for each foe hit in the area (similar to focus 4 hp leech)

Chillbains

pulses 1 additional time after a small delay

Putrid mark

remains as is

Reapers mark

remains as is

Soul marks

now makes marks unblockable and reduces staff recharge by 10% +2% for each target hit (similar to the way the reaper shout trait works.)

These are fairly great suggestions, I'd like to build off of them, so in addition to what you mention I'd recommend the following:

I would make Soul Marks do a flat 20% reduction of CDs like other weapon skill CD traits.

I recommend that Chilblains pulse its effects once per second over 4 seconds with the strike damage on the first pulse. Soul Marks makes the initial strike unblockable.

Give Putrid Mark an Ammo system. 5s CD between uses, 2 uses, use recharge of 25s. This is so you can't double blast the Chilblains field, but you could lay down another field from a utility to blast.

For AA chain you suggested but did not elaborate on:

This is based on the current AA being hit 1 in the chain, visually think of that hand raking the target or something like that.2nd hit should be little to no delay, similar damage to 1st hit, no LF gain, inflicts poison for 4s.3rd hit should also be little to no delay, about 15% more damage than the previous hit, no LF gain, inflicts chill for 2s.

The little delay on AA2 and AA3 should just be the after cast of the previous hit in the chain. This is because the current AA is the first hit, is slow AF, and why not, I can dream. Of course I'd take a better single hit AA that hits quicker.

I like all this

[Axl.8924]

I feel like staff is already pretty strong condi but the support i guess is ok at best

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:I would make Soul Marks do a flat 20% reduction of CDs like other weapon skill CD traits.

The CD reduction have already been made baseline long ago, any suggestion for a trait giving back a CD redution will most likely be followed by an increase to the base CD of the skills.

That operates under the assumption that the current CDs are fine on Staff. Mark of Blood I feel is fine, but the others feel lacking in the CD department.

@killfil.3472Thanks!

[ZDragon.3046]

@Dadnir.5038 said:

@ZDragon.3046 said:

Mark of blood

no longer grants regeneration and just immediately leeches a bit of hp for each foe hit in the area (similar to focus 4 hp leech)

And this is exactly the kind of idea that justify why I do not want ANet to touch the necromancer's staff. Life siphon is hand down one of the worst mechanism in this game. We shouldn't ask ANet to put more of this on the already poor kit of the necromancer. Your suggestion is basically a support and damage nerf.You need staff to realisticly be a support weapon in form of healing before you can call it a real nerf i dont agree with you sorry.People dont go around pressing 2 for healing as a necromancer and call it true support thats not a thing.

Current staff is still kind of crap regardless if it changes or not because of simple things like none of the marks generate life force at their base forcing the use of soul marks with the weapon.

Regen aint all that and it never will be so long as various other professions do it better you wont be pressing 2 for healing over time like its a superb thing. Necromancers main support comes from Blood well, Transfusion, Barrier, Vampiric aura and in that order. I dont even think regeneration is a major consideration in most setups its just there but its not a big deal.

You do have a right to say you dont want anything changed because anet will prob mess it up and that much i agree with but still thats not a reason to pretent like staff is all that amazing cause its really not.

[ZDragon.3046]

@Lan Deathrider.5910 said:

@"ZDragon.3046" said:Staff does need some changes but im not so sure i would give it a total rework.

Give staff an auto attack chain.

Best thing they can do for staff is take the life force from soul marks and make that baselineAll marks now generate 3% life force at abase

Mark of blood

no longer grants regeneration and just immediately leeches a bit of hp for each foe hit in the area (similar to focus 4 hp leech)

Chillbains

pulses 1 additional time after a small delay

Putrid mark

remains as is

Reapers mark

remains as is

Soul marks

now makes marks unblockable and reduces staff recharge by 10% +2% for each target hit (similar to the way the reaper shout trait works.)

These are fairly great suggestions, I'd like to build off of them, so in addition to what you mention I'd recommend the following:

I would make Soul Marks do a flat 20% reduction of CDs like other weapon skill CD traits.

I thought about that but..... i feel like someone would say a flat 20% is too much especially if trying to make changes to the marks because thats how some people are when you make suggestion for necro. That said as someone else said cd reductions were made a long time ago still though some skills cds are wayyyyy too high which is why i opted for the 10% lesser value with a rewarding bonus based on how many targets you hit with the mark rather than a easy flat 20% this helps balance it out a bit more.

I recommend that Chilblains pulse its effects once per second over 4 seconds with the strike damage on the first pulse. Soul Marks makes the initial strike unblockable.

Thats too much for a single weapon skill imo i would have to question why gs does not pulse faster if you made staff 3 pulse that many times that fast. it should litterally just be one pulse on mark trigger followed by anothero ne after a 1.5 or 2s delay

Give Putrid Mark an Ammo system. 5s CD between uses, 2 uses, use recharge of 25s. This is so you can't double blast the Chilblains field, but you could lay down another field from a utility to blast.

I mean im not so sure this is really needed i feel like if i had written that someone would have said "THATS TOO STRONG"

For AA chain you suggested but did not elaborate on:

This is based on the current AA being hit 1 in the chain, visually think of that hand raking the target or something like that.2nd hit should be little to no delay, similar damage to 1st hit, no LF gain, inflicts poison for 4s.3rd hit should also be little to no delay, about 15% more damage than the previous hit, no LF gain, inflicts chill for 2s.

No ranged chill on auto chain thats a good way to get the chill condition nerfed again you should keep some lf gen on autosI can already see people saying chill is too strong and this would just be chill spam.

[Teratus.2859]

@"KrHome.1920" said:If you give it ammunition there will be way too much condi stacking. No one will need scourge shades anymore.

At least it will define staff as a condi weapon, atm it's a bit of a all rounder, mostly power damage, some condition utility, CC and condi transfer.Doesn't really have a defined role which is part of the problem with it.

Condi Necros biggest weakness is that it has limited access to high damage conditions without scourge and it's base ability to stack condis is pretty garbage as well.If anything it needs more condi stacking, specially with bleeds which do abysmal damage compared to burns.Bleeds are only really effective if you can stack a lot of them really quickly.. and Necro despite bleeding being their primary condition simply cannot stack them quick enough.

Playing condi necro in PvE is excruciating due to slow condi stacking.. Scourge helps by adding burns but if you don't have access to that it's not even worth running a condi necro when power Necro so ruthlessly wipes the floor with it.The only viable non scourge "condi" build I've found that is somewhat passible in PvE is running a Hybrid Reaper with Dhuumfire and Reaper's Onslaught, even then condis are mediocre at best.

If staff had ammo it would at least buff that condi stacking a bit.. and if you had control over detonating your marks via a death magic trait upgrade and could set up nice bleed/poison spikes that would be even better and would help solve the complaints that deathmagic gets for being a underwhelming trait line .

[KrHome.1920]

@Teratus.2859 said:

@"KrHome.1920" said:If you give it ammunition there will be way too much condi stacking. No one will need scourge shades anymore.

At least it will define staff as a condi weapon, atm it's a bit of a all rounder, mostly power damage, some condition utility, CC and condi transfer.Doesn't really have a defined role which is part of the problem with it.

Condi Necros biggest weakness is that it has limited access to high damage conditions without scourge and it's base ability to stack condis is pretty garbage as well.If anything it needs more condi stacking, specially with bleeds which do abysmal damage compared to burns.Bleeds are only really effective if you can stack a lot of them really quickly.. and Necro despite bleeding being their primary condition simply cannot stack them quick enough.

Playing condi necro in PvE is excruciating due to slow condi stacking.. Scourge helps by adding burns but if you don't have access to that it's not even worth running a condi necro when power Necro so ruthlessly wipes the floor with it.The only viable non scourge "condi" build I've found that is somewhat passible in PvE is running a Hybrid Reaper with Dhuumfire and Reaper's Onslaught, even then condis are mediocre at best.

If staff had ammo it would at least buff that condi stacking a bit.. and if you had control over detonating your marks via a death magic trait upgrade and could set up nice bleed/poison spikes that would be even better and would help solve the complaints that deathmagic gets for being a underwhelming trait line .First of all, pve is irrelevant in terms of balancing. When I talk about balancing then I talk about the competitive game modes.

Besides that, in pve condi reaper stacks 20 bleeds in 2 seconds and has an upkeep of 5 stacks of burn in shroud.

Scourge is a support spec. It's not meant to be played as top dps necro spec. That's the role of reaper which is more selfish and melee range.

Back to staff: 20 necros in wvw spamming staff marks with the ammunition system will be a problem. That's what I was talking about. Staff is a utility weapon. It has insane life force generation (20% LF alone on staff 5 when soul reaping is picked) on all necro specs and can be dangerous on condi reaper as skill 2, 3 and 5 apply bleeding on top of all the other utility. I have a dire staff+gs roaming build for reaper I play from time to time to troll people (no one expects condi reaper these days). That build is quite potent and staff is totally fine for it.

[Teratus.2859]

@KrHome.1920 said:

@Teratus.2859 said:

@KrHome.1920 said:If you give it ammunition there will be way too much condi stacking. No one will need scourge shades anymore.

At least it will define staff as a condi weapon, atm it's a bit of a all rounder, mostly power damage, some condition utility, CC and condi transfer.Doesn't really have a defined role which is part of the problem with it.

Condi Necros biggest weakness is that it has limited access to high damage conditions without scourge and it's base ability to stack condis is pretty garbage as well.If anything it needs more condi stacking, specially with bleeds which do abysmal damage compared to burns.Bleeds are only really effective if you can stack a lot of them really quickly.. and Necro despite bleeding being their primary condition simply cannot stack them quick enough.

Playing condi necro in PvE is excruciating due to slow condi stacking.. Scourge helps by adding burns but if you don't have access to that it's not even worth running a condi necro when power Necro so ruthlessly wipes the floor with it.The only viable non scourge "condi" build I've found that is somewhat passible in PvE is running a Hybrid Reaper with Dhuumfire and Reaper's Onslaught, even then condis are mediocre at best.

If staff had ammo it would at least buff that condi stacking a bit.. and if you had control over detonating your marks via a death magic trait upgrade and could set up nice bleed/poison spikes that would be even better and would help solve the complaints that deathmagic gets for being a underwhelming trait line .First of all, pve is irrelevant in terms of balancing. When I talk about balancing then I talk about the competitive game modes.

Besides that, in pve condi reaper stacks 20 bleeds in 2 seconds and has an upkeep of 5 stacks of burn in shroud.

Not sure where you're getting 20 bleeds in 2 seconds from, it's more like 10-12 in that time tops.

Scourge is a support spec. It's not meant to be played as top dps necro spec. That's the role of reaper which is more selfish and melee range.

Support Condi i'd argue.. Reaper can be played as an effective support as well, i've multiple Reaper builds that do just that.What Reaper mainly lacks in is being a condi dps spec, Hybrid works fine but most of that damage is coming from power with somewhat ok condi support.Pure condi is just a giant nope on Reaper and it's greatly outclassed profession wide by power damage.. with the exception of Scourge.

Back to staff: 20 necros in wvw spamming staff marks with the ammunition system will be a problem. That's what I was talking about. Staff is a utility weapon. It has insane life force generation (20% LF alone on staff 5 when soul reaping is picked) on all necro specs and can be dangerous on condi reaper as skill 2, 3 and 5 apply bleeding on top of all the other utility. I have a dire staff+gs roaming build for reaper I play from time to time to troll people (no one expects condi reaper these days). That build is quite potent and staff is totally fine for it.

WvW would naturally need to have skills split for balance as they always should be in the first place, the main upgrade WvW Necros would get would be control over their marks detonation which im pretty sure most people would prefer over the current setup, too easy for a single person to waste your marks as it is now by dodging straight out of them and cleansing.A small group of Necros could then co-ordinate their marks and sync detonate them to achieve the big spike they can't get on their own in WvW encouraging organized group play which is something that should have always been a big part of the WvW game mode anyway and not this current trend of solo roaming and 1v1 duling nonsense that belongs in PvP not WvW.WvW is an active warzone.. PvP is a dueling arena.

[miguelsil.6324]

All staff needs is instant cast on all marks and way faster autos to compensate the long cds of marks.

[ZDragon.3046]

@"KrHome.1920" said:First of all, pve is irrelevant in terms of balancing. When I talk about balancing then I talk about the competitive game modes.

Its not when you speak on messing with a weapons skills. Because a change like that changes the weapon in all 3 game modes its perfectly fine to rope pve into the picture even if the changes are by far less impactful on that mode.

Besides that, in pve condi reaper stacks 20 bleeds in 2 seconds and has an upkeep of 5 stacks of burn in shroud.

This is nothing tbh or have you not seen like any other condition build like literally any other modern condition build. 20 bleeds is nothing and holding 5 burn is also nothing not to mention you cant continue to hold your bleeds if you opt to hold the burn.

Scourge is a support spec. It's not meant to be played as top dps necro spec. That's the role of reaper which is more selfish and melee range.Welp thats not how it is right now so we cant ignore that. Fact is anet is bad at building supports and forcing them to support not a single support that they have developed as an elite has never not been used with a selfish offensive play style at some point because anet allows that to happen.Druid did this, Chrono did this, Tempest did this for a short time, Firebrand is currently doing it, and scourge had its time where thats mainly how it was used too. Sorry to say supports in this game often end up being very selfish which is why they end up so strong for so long before eventually being nerfed. Not everyone plays them with their ideal roles in mind.

Back to staff: 20 necros in wvw spamming staff marks with the ammunition system will be a problem. That's what I was talking about. Staff is a utility weapon. It has insane life force generation (20% LF alone on staff 5 when soul reaping is picked) on all necro specs and can be dangerous on condi reaper as skill 2, 3 and 5 apply bleeding on top of all the other utility. I have a dire staff+gs roaming build for reaper I play from time to time to troll people (no one expects condi reaper these days). That build is quite potent and staff is totally fine for it.

Still why should pve and spvp staff be limited just because of WvW again?... (not totally in agreement with adding ammo to every mark but still i wont to pose this question)I ideally you will only see staff as a problem in wvw and not in any other mode also the way you solve staff marks with the ammo system is by removing the old mark of the same type when you put a new one down so you are still limited to at max 4 marks per necro 1 of each skill at any given time.

Insane life force generation is technically not true either if you are looking at wvw zerg fight situations where people die all the time it hardly matters if the necro uses a staff for life force or not. In other modes (spvp) its also not the case and getting reasonable lifeforce from 0% without using something like spectral grab can be very rough.

Moving on to the reality of how potent staff is.... Its not...... Staff at its base is a low tier utility weapon and most people fail to see this because they always run the trait. If you run Soul Marks staff becomes a utility weapon how ever you NEED a trait to make the marks generate life force thus making it a real utility weapon. Take off soul marks and staff, at base, is a joke to labeled as a "utility" weapon.

Your example with 20% life force requires the investment of 2 traits and 1 Minor trait (Soul Marks + Fear of Death + Gluttony) if anything really the staff is not doing the life force generation at all... the whole 20% value can be summed up in these 3 traits not from the staff base kit. Even if we took soul marks out of the equation here the majority of that 20% comes from Fear of death which other sources can proc eliminating the need for staff if a person opted without losing the life force gain. My point is dont over sell staff when the staff itself is hardly responsible for examples you are tossing up.Condi reaper is commonly not a real thing and has been pretty much phased out by not only reapers power traits but also by the meta around everyone else. The conditions are super limited to mostly bleed and it ramps slowly, minor cleanses can negate a burst etc. Its not good right now. The fact that you claim to troll people with it is a good indication of this. But if you killed them with condi reaper its roughly safe to say they would have lost to any condi setup because a good majority of condi setups on other professions are far stronger.

TLDRDo i think ammo on staff marks would be cool? Yes.Do i think the ammo idea a must? No i dont.Is staff a good weapon at its base? No its mediocre.Does staff needs a few QoL changes? Yes it does.

[Lan Deathrider.5910]

I want to point out that I only suggested that Putrid Mark get ammunition, not any of the other marks, and that I recommended that there be 5s between uses with each use having a 25s recharge. You would not be able to rapidly spam it.

@ZDragon.3046 is right in that base staff is really mediocre. It is the ONLY long range weapon available to the Necromancer profession, and while it does do a few nice things those nice things have CDs that are too long.

Making Chilblains pulse, the duration of which can certainly be debated, and giving Putrid Mark an ammo system would help Staff out greatlyv at minimum.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

all it needs is the 2nd skill power damage increased.

[Anchoku.8142]

Staff's design is very good and I would not want it changed but also woulf not object to some minor buffing.