Hello! I've been playing variations of this build for a long time and have had a number of people asking about it in the past and more recently, so I thought I'd make a video and share it. It's not a great build by any means, but I find it a lot of fun.
Main build: http://gw2skills.net/editor/?PGQAYlFw8YisOGKW2XatVA-zVZYWBhMEEkYUwdeGZqA6VCoxDSYsButTDFOjAA-w
I wasn't expecting it to be this long, but enjoyed messing around with editing so I just kept throwing stuff in. There are a few duels added at the end to show some burst/cc combos.
General gameplay:
You have 3 lightning fields (staff air 5, hammer 5, and air overload field). Combo your hammer 2 leap through any of these for a daze and lightning rod proc.
If possible, be in air attune with hammer to fill out your fury uptime with CC (arc trait) and for the air attune ferocity bonus.
Apart from CC chains, air overload and hammer 4 are your main bursts.
Try to swap into/be in air/earth/fire attune when using tornado to overload after nado CC.
Additionally, you can camp tornado if you know your enemy is out of stunbreaks. This feels super cheesy but it works.
Fire attunement is mainly for burning retreat. Honorable mention to fire 3 for blind/aegis clear.
Be sure to pop fire overload (if ready) before or after burning retreat for free stab as their CDs are the same.
Stow overload or attune swap if cast after burning retreat if you just want the stab.
Gust can be backcast and is only reliable point blank vs moving target.
This build excels using line of sight and terrain, not so much in open field.
I don't use it but the 'Cast on target' option can be very nice for static and frost fields.
Predicting enemy movement, some may call it luck, is important to this build's effectiveness.
I feel like a dum-dum whiffing statics or a mind-reader catching someone being fancy with their about face button.
Build variants:
Gear?
I've found mostly, if not all, marauder to be the best, especially in outnumbered situations.
I used to run a heavy zerk mix but the damage increase is negligible vs the HP increase.
Diviners mix is also nice, but once again you lose a lot of HP.
Sigils?
Cleansing: a must for general purpose play, cleansing + glyph heal feels best, but ether is too good in outnumbered LOS situations.
Energy: goes well with evasive arcana
Draining: pairs well with lifesteal food
Celerity: staff is slow so this feels great.
Along w/ quickness from hammer 2, this sigil really shines if you mix in a good amount of diviners, providing respectable quickness uptime.
Runes?
The damage difference of Durability vs Pack (the go-to power rune) isn't worth the defensive tradeoffs.
Can meme with Eagle/infiltration runes (along w/ force and impact sigils).
In PvP, I'd recommend divinity. However, this build is extra bad in PvP.
Celestial?
I'm not a fan of this, but you can run full cele if you take Pack runes and Battle sigil, which will bring your power more or less in line with a mara setup. You can easily stack 25 might on yourself, but not so realistically in combat. It's pretty gross that cele (more toughness and significant increases to healing and condi damage) can feel more or less the same as a marauders setup damage wise - such is GW2.
You can still maintain perma prot like this but need to stay on top of prot generation, also you lose the prot on hit.
Water traitline?
Maybe better situationally or for group play (aura share), but the attunement CD reduction, extra protection, and fury on (air) disable procs add a lot to the build. Evasive arcana water dodge ~= healing ripple + cleansing wave, vigor on crit and regen on water swap ~= cantrip trait. Regen on water swap ~= soothing mist. Generally water line is underwhelming, although any traitline substituted for arcane has the potential to work.
Arcane trait?
A fun duel build. Taking two arcane utils, in addition to conjure, and arc trait is fun, albeit more all-in. Arc blast immob in air overload?
Stormsoul?
Running this will make your statics stun for almost 3 secs (don't interrupt this w/ further CC)
Damage isn't too different from linked setup so you're mainly taking this for the CC duration.
May be bettersuited for small man.
Take fury on aura if taking this
Impact and/or paralyzation sigil possibly worth taking.
Earth Shield?
This is objectively better, but way less fun in my opinion. No punt? No thank you.
Alacrity vs Overload CD and 7% damage?
The overload CD with alacrity is similar to the CD reduction trait.
Beyond that, it's a conditional 7% damage boost vs CD reduction on all skills and attunements? No brainer.
Utilities?
Ether or glyph heal.
Any stunbreak, they each have their own strengths.
The Good:
Lots of CC (draining sigil approves)
Protection uptime
Stability and stunbreak access
Spike damage
Condi cleanse (especially if using ether heal)
Area control
LOS abuse
Good kiting: I prefer the extra damage but superspeed on air is nice if you want more zoom
Fun combos
The Bad:
Basically all of your damage is in melee. Ranged battle? Don't try it.
Poor sustained damage, not a lot of follow-up damage outside of burst
General staff shortcomings
Predictable
The Ugly:
More or less useless vs...
Anyone that kites air attune and hammer
Builds with a lot of stability access
High sustain builds
Camping overloads while deciding if facetanking whatever you're smashing your forehead into is worth it feels a bit silly
Slow and clunky... Is staff.
Be better. Don't...
Interrupt your static stuns to keep chaining CCs instead of simply doing damage. I'm often guilty of this CC chain brain.
Positional/movement dodging. I do this a lot, maybe a bad habit from WvW energy sigil, or maybe I random dodge a steal.
They have not, nor would I expect that, in PvP/WvW at least, as it'd likely be a balancing nightmare. Closest you'll get is using conjure weapons. Earth shield is currently very strong in player vs player environments.
