Vardogr.9371

Are you asking me that question? I do not think there couldn't be future implementations of staff as a DPS weapon. If I had to hazard a guess though, judging by how many professions use staff as a main weapon for DPS, I would say the chances are quite slim. I think the entire point of my original post was to spark the idea of more options. There seems to be a general thought that staff is mostly a support weapon and should stay as a support weapon and I understand that. There aren't too many iterations of support weapons to go around in the first place. So as I see it, staves got the short straw and remain a support weapon with a few minor exceptions. I also think making any future implementations DPS oriented would make a certain set of player apprehensive.

Also adding the ability to be a DPS caster that uses staves along side what exists right now does not muddy the waters when it comes to how classes are defined. A druid still will be support and Daredevil will still be melee DPS. Those nuances would be hammered out by ANet. I am advocating for a shake up of the status quo in future applications.

First, thank you for trying to expand the dialogue it is truly appreciated. I need to you look past the announcement in 2015 and anything subsequent and understand my whole thought process stems from before that in regards to my opinions of druid design. That is what I meant and will always mean. I will never argue what was portrayed to us, was ever intended to be different. I am not advocating for a skin change either. The whole exercise of pointing out how a staff could completely replace the greatsword, was to further the idea that in the future more DPS oriented uses of the staff could be implemented. I also mentioned I don't want Mesmer to change either. Do not get hung up on a specific profession. Instead think abstractly how a staff could fit in future application a DPS role instead of a support one when it comes to magic caster types. The end of my last post puts how I feel about the possibility of future applications succinctly. You are disagreeing with a premise I have never even made in this thread. Any mention of druid seems to be a stick in the craw. I have consistently stated I do not want anything to change in its current form. I do not want supports to become DPS nor vice versa. I am not certain how much more I can try to explain that. I am truly not trying to be mean to you. I substituted Mesmer to make the point clearer and that was missed. The meat of what I was saying is why can there not be future possible implementations similar to how I explained Mesmer and the greatsword. My grasp of English is firm and I know I am explaining this at a level most people should be able to reasonably understand.

Look I agree with you up until you say changing it now would go against it's design. I have tried to beat that into people's heads repeatedly that I don't want the current iteration of druid to not be anything other than it is now. I do wish it was more effective support wise in WvW but that is a story for another day. You have stated that you believe that the concept of Druid from soup to nuts has always been support and that assertion is merely subjective and that is okay and I do not disagree with your opinions validity. You can't know what they were thinking at the inspiration stage, then the brainstorming stage and the rest of development until what information you were given at release not can I for that matter. Which is the crux of my rebuttal to the other poster. You feel those abilities portray visually a support roll and I do not. This is okay by me and I appreciate it entirely as both of our opinions are subjective. Unless a Dev swoops into this post to correct all of us it is just speculation and always will be. I will instead use greatsword Mesmer skills a visual and somewhat physical representation of what I mean when I envision a staff wielding caster DPS. Almost all of its skills are of a ranged nature and if you removed the sword and inserted a staff in place of it, it wouldn't be to out of place to see those skills coming from a staff instead. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Spatial_Surge is the quintessential example of why I am confused there aren't more caster types with staves in this game that aren't support. Mind Stab could easily be a column of Mesmer energy or even swords floating or spikes forming around a foes head and jabbing into their mind. There is no reason skills like that couldn't be on a staff other than possibly sticking to a theme, I am not really certain what purpose a greatsword serves as a ranged weapon than having it be something different than the norm I suppose or that staves are support weapons only and they chose to use the sword as the other ranged damage choice. I will probably never know. Now with the way people seem to read in this thread I will reiterate I don't want Mesmer to change at all. If there were to be new specs or something added that could make the thematic use of staves more DPS than support then I am completely for it and encourage it. Which was the whole point of this thread.

Thank you for the question and I made that assumption on different skills and how the animation for those skills presents. All the of the skills that slam light down from the sky do not strike me as healing but seem more aligned with wanting to do damage.I explained this earlier: I came to my completely subjective opinion on the subject in part from whats portrayed in that quote. I also mention throwing out vines in the fashion druid does seemed more inclined to have a possibly different iteration at some point in time. These opinions have been taken as if I am making some sort factual statement that I haven't made. The things I have said about druid were just my perception of the class and wondered if it changed before it was released.

Also your belief is wrong. So goddamn wrong it hurts to read it. It is amazing that I can say something simple as "It seems to me that druid seemed like it may have been different at some point in time" gets transformed into someone else's mind as a thought provoking factual stance and some hill I apparently built in this thread to die on. The only hill I will die on in this thread is you are wrong about my perception of druid and how I view the class today. Once again your tenuous grasp on nuance and context leads you to have this false idea that I want druid to be something different than it is or that I am stating as fact Druid was to be different. When if you go back and read the time I mentioned Druid skills or animations they were in relation to what I thought IN MY OPINION a caster dps should look similar to. But I apparently cannot lead this horse to the water so how am I expected it will drink if it could get to the water on it's own.

Thanks teacher. Take the L and move on. This isn't a paper that I am writing, it was a discussion. In discussions you can make speculative statements such as I think cars that are blue are awesome or that I think it is nicer when it rains or that Druid from my point of view looked as though it could have had a different intention at some point in time. A claim in which is not substantive to any sort of point I have been trying to make when it comes to what I also subjectively think a staff wielding DPS caster could be. You have massively failed to actually substantiate an actual argument as there isn't one that exists with what you keep reiterating. In your world I am using Druid as some sort of stick to hit everyone with and tell them that druid was never supposed to be a support class and it is the only example that exists to prove out what I think a staff dps should be.

You do realize a subjective opinion is inherently unfounded right? It is never based in fact. I even gave you many examples of that.

Also two people are really hung up on my thoughts on Druid. This is not a me thing.

This really wasn't a proposal to ANet as it really wouldn't be something I would expect them to give any real serious thought too. Scepters do not have to be the be all end all to caster DPS. Using the example of a Revenant using a hammer for ranged damage, a Staff can be done similarly without the need for support being the real purpose of a staff. Not an entirely difficult concept to come to terms with. Not every profession uses scepter either. Most weapons honestly make no sense to me, for example Mesmer using a greatsword as a ranged weapon when staff and scepter already exist and I am aware of the different purposes of those weapons. Essentially the greatsword could be replaced by staff in theory and nothing would need to change really. Bear in mind I am not advocating for that change but merely pointing out that it would be closer to what I am trying to impart. Revenant and Daredevil use staves in a melee capacity and that works. So my thought was having some sort of caster being able to use a staff as their main weapon as a Warrior uses a greatsword or a Daredevil uses a staff . Not the same execution as those two classes i mentioned but as a way to have more magic or scholar based classes have the option for a main weapon being a staff.

You and I can't know what the entire design process was for the druid as we were not part of it. You are literally arguing that my opinion is wrong that I thought something had a different intention than maybe what is presented today. There is no way anyone could know other than the devs who sat down and fleshed out the design in the brainstorming sessions and then walked that design through the entire process to what it is now. So yes I am stubbornly sticking to my subjective opinion that It seemed to me that something seemed like it could have had a different intention at another time than what was presented at release or now. Certain opinions can't be right or wrong. As some are subjective not objective. You are essentially saying anyone who says blue cars are awesome is wrong. That is a subjective opinion and can't be inherently wrong or right. Having the opinion the world is flat is an objectively wrong opinion as it has been proven otherwise and is based solely on fact not feelings. Me pointing out that it seemed something like the druid may have had a different intention is not an objective opinion but an example of a subjective opinion. Me using the current druid skills I highlighted were vehicles to justify my subjective opinion and have no basis in actual facts. They were meant to show how I came to my subjective opinions conclusion. https://www.vocabulary.com/articles/chooseyourwords/objective-subjective/ please read that and understand what I am trying to impart to you as I think it is critical to you grasping the difference between what you are thinking I am saying and what I am actually saying. I am not trying to attack you but it seems as though you aren't understanding anything I have been trying to explain. Plus you have completely missed the original intent of the post to argue the minutiae of a subjective opinion than to contribute to the conversation. Have a good day and Happy Holidays.

Well that was sort of my intent of this post originally. I look at all the animations and skills that use staff and they look really cool but aren't meant for damage. It would be fun to some of us to be able to use a staff like a caster that isn't Elementalist, Mirage, or Daredevil. Being able to have a staff as a main damage weapon like greatsword is to warrior would be a blast. I concede it may never happen but I was throwing out the Idea of having a caster maybe be viable with a staff outside of the very few we have now.

What part of seemed like it was is getting lost on you? The statement is opinion on the design of the class not the current or released presentation. I am saying initial conception means on the drawing board not what was presented to players. That whole statement about what I thought the class's design intent was to be is speculation. I can not be wrong because it isn't an objective concept it is merely opinion. I have never argued the point of druid being a damage dealer and it being changed or that it was never support. I do not honestly get how that is missed in most of this thread. I used language that was never absolute in nature. Druids skills look to me as if they were intended to be something other than support when they were being designed. That is an opinion not a fact. Hitting people with astral energy to heal them in the fashion of Cosmic Ray or Lunar Impact with aggressive beams of light made me say hmm that just doesn't seem right or that doesn't strike me as intentionally being a support type skill. Which leads me to say what I said about druids. Also concept does not mean final product. When something is conceived it rarely stays the way it was at conception.

No I have not mixed it up. I said Druid seemed like it was damage oriented in the initial concept, meaning not the eventual version you see today or when it was releasesd. This whole thread was more of a thought experiment about having casters do DPS with staves and building on that fantasy but it turned into marking peoples inability to read nuance.

I do not want a scepter. I want to be able to have more caster DPS able to use staves. It is quite clear in the progression of this thread that I do not want to change anything about current staves but the ability to have the option for more classes to have access to Staves as a DPS weapon and not solely a support weapon that does some DPS . I was proposing that for a staff DPS caster scenario to work maybe have its damage be greater when closer to the target so it can maintain the close range combat does greater damage than ranged combat. I used revenant to highlight how it can do something similar to what I am looking for with its hammer skills. It can do a lot of damage in certain applications with a hammer and most of the skills are ranged. It would be interesting to have a caster that can use a staff that isn't a support weapon outside of the professions mentioned throughout this thread. I mentioned Druid because it seemed like at least to me the initial concept may have been more damage oriented but the games philosophy may have herded it in a more support role but I could be wrong.