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Staff #5 is now a joke. Revert the 'tell'/self-root!


Profanity.6829

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Surge of the Mists was a very strong multi-utility. It did okay damage, made you evade for a very short window, interupted enemy players if hit, and could be used to engage/disengage. Great design, and not OP when you looked at the cooldown. Nerfing the ability was justified and in line with the rest of the patch I think, but the small self-root they added, kicked this ability into (almost) uselessness...

Damage:All damage was taken from CC's and that's fine. Its debatable if Surge of the Mists was really a cc, as it was more a interrupt, but sure, removing the damage was fine and seemed fair.

CC:However: the pre-load time / self-root is just absolutely rediculous. You will never land this on enemy players in PvP if your enemy isn't a complete potato. They don't even need to dodge, merely strafing aside will do...

Mobility:But of course it's a versatile skill, we have always used it (when needed) as a disengage tool as wel. Well, that's now also gone. The self-root now completely trashed the utility of disengaging, LoS'ing etc, because you see the (dis)engage comming way to easily. Is that bad? Yes it is! Isn't current philisophy that only long CC's have a obvious tells? Why did they added such a huge root/tell to something with such a low CC impact?

So how to fix? Options:

  • Remove the pre-load and self-root altogether.
  • Remove the self-root that's attached to the pre-load part. So keep the pre-load time, but allow the player to still move and aim.
  • Keeping it as it is now, but drastically lower cooldown.

Other ideas?

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In my opinion what needs to be done is remove the self root on the wind up so it is actually reasonable to land on non afk opponents, and give back a significant amount of damage. At least enough damage needs to come back that you actually care about landing the whole channel, without damage there is no incentive to try to land the full skill and without that incentive the skill goes from one of very few skills in this game with a unique mechanic and a high skill cap to a boring pure evade skill that sometimes interrupts something if you are lucky.

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Yeah, I try to look at things optimistically and take a step back when it comes to changes, but I can't get over how horrid the skill feels now. I have considered even replacing it with hammer in my power roaming builds, but with the CoR CD increase I don't know if that'd be worth it. I would be happy if they removed the self-root and nothing more.

I also seem to keep messing up my use of it when trying to proc Charged Mists, like it expends the energy slightly later than it usually does? So I end up activating IO or Hammers right after activating SotM to get my energy down for the CM proc, but it cancels SotM due to lack of energy. I am not at home right now so can't test it, but I never had that issue pre-patch.

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I won't ever land staff #5 again because I won't even use it again. Worst thing about the shield was how it rooted us, and now the staff is worse, because the shield at least can be paired with a weapon which does, you known, damage (mace) so staff can root (pun intended) in hell. The same with the hammer: I won't touch those two (or power Revenant builds) with a 10 feet pole. Shiro was an agressive legend based on attack speed, mobility and evasion with high risk (weak to condis) and high reward (burst damage) and now instead is a phat no one with harmless weapons which makes you slower. I refuse to play a shadow of its former glory.

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@"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:Yeah, I try to look at things optimistically and take a step back when it comes to changes, but I can't get over how horrid the skill feels now. I have considered even replacing it with hammer in my power roaming builds, but with the CoR CD increase I don't know if that'd be worth it. I would be happy if they removed the self-root and nothing more.

I also seem to keep messing up my use of it when trying to proc Charged Mists, like it expends the energy slightly later than it usually does? So I end up activating IO or Hammers right after activating SotM to get my energy down for the CM proc, but it cancels SotM due to lack of energy. I am not at home right now so can't test it, but I never had that issue pre-patch.

I'm running sword main hand with sword and shield off hands now the two handers are so bad, and mace is completely useless in power builds so sword only mainhand it is now.

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@ArthurDent.9538 said:

@"Pterikdactyl.7630" said:Yeah, I try to look at things optimistically and take a step back when it comes to changes, but I can't get over how horrid the skill feels now. I have considered even replacing it with hammer in my power roaming builds, but with the CoR CD increase I don't know if that'd be worth it. I would be happy if they removed the self-root and nothing more.

I also seem to keep messing up my use of it when trying to proc Charged Mists, like it expends the energy slightly later than it usually does? So I end up activating IO or Hammers right after activating SotM to get my energy down for the CM proc, but it cancels SotM due to lack of energy. I am not at home right now so can't test it, but I never had that issue pre-patch.

I'm running sword main hand with sword and shield off hands now the two handers are so bad, and mace is completely useless in power builds so sword only mainhand it is now.

Yeah, I was considering doing that on Herald, but I run mostly core so don't have that option. I suppose I could do sw/sw sw/axe but I would like some defensive utility. I may give hammer a spin tonight when I get home from work. Never thought I'd say that.

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Among all the things that brought power herald down, this is by far the worst design decision. This skill needs to at the very least be aimable during the windup, and more likely, needs to have the windup removed entirely in favor of a longer travel during the surge.

The huge stunbreak nerfs probably have more of an effect on power herald's standing in the meta (I would say revert Facet of Darkness to 20 seconds and put Riposting Shadows at 35 energy since we know Empty Vessel is gone and it ain't coming back), as does the fact that Battle Scars numbers are absolutely trash in competitive gamemodes, but Surge is by far the biggest thing ruining the flow of the class. An absolute insult to what once was a great skill.

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@Yasai.3549 said:All they needed to add is free movement during windup.

Betrayed all my expectations of the skill.

Or if they wanted the introduce counterplay, an icon can appear overhead (like signets) when activated. For some reason on Revenant weapons, when ANET wants to introduce counterplay, they do so by adding clunky wind ups that make the skill less fun to use.

See Shackling Wave.

Meanwhile still waiting on the Counterplay to Malicious Backstab (beyond dOdGe ofc)

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Well the staff 5 could be used as a built in skill, if one press like a tap would execute the skill instantly with poor damage, if one could keep pressing skill Dow skill could built damage, this way players could have both ways the no delay and one that makes players have the wind up/ built up .

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The real problem is that CCs in general are completely imbalanced at the moment. Because all of them do no damage, they are thus currently rated based on what utility they bring to the table, casting speed, etc. Since the utility effects and other bonuses were not seriously looked at when all CC damage was removed, things are a bit well...fucked, at the moment.

On one end of the spectrum you have unblockable tab-target CCs with hardly any animation tied to them that can be landed while half-asleep and last for 2+ seconds. On the other hand you have skills like staff 5, that cannot be tab targetted and thus require perfect aim and precision prediction to land... yet it only CCs your target for a brief 1/2 second.

Many of the utility and weapon skill CCs in the game are objectively better than certain elite skills ( IE: Stomp and Gale are currently better skills than Prime Light Beam and Dragon release ).

Staff 5 is just one of many abilities that should be looked at in a future patch that looks at all CC skills.

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I would much much rather Staff 5 not CC at all and kept its original damage and no windup than this clunky mess right now.

It would at least guarantee 4~5 hits on a stationary target, and max hits on a target running from the Revenant.Right now it's either it misses or it lands like 3 hits max before the target either gets pushed out of the way by the skill itself or because the target already moved to avoid it.

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@Turkeyspit.3965 said:

@Yasai.3549 said:All they needed to add is free movement during windup.

Betrayed all my expectations of the skill.

Or if they wanted the introduce counterplay, an icon can appear overhead (like signets) when activated. For some reason on Revenant weapons, when ANET wants to introduce counterplay, they do so by adding clunky wind ups that make the skill less fun to use.

See Shackling Wave.

Meanwhile still waiting on the Counterplay to Malicious Backstab (beyond dOdGe ofc)

One time I dropped the hammer on a perma stealth malicious backstabber. Just as I engaged a camp he had been lurking around I immediately used it above my head and he ate it rofl. So yes malicious backstab has counter play, just know where the deadeye is, easier than dodge!

! No really, that skill needs to disappear. Thankfully nobody plays it.

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