Staff on Elementalist?

[Darigostoaf.2509]

Ever since the change to meteor shower on staff, Elementalist has had a shift in power over to the power tempest, usually in the form of dagger main-hand or scepter main-hand with an off-hand war horn, or we have seen Weaver with a sword regardless of damage type.  Staff had been the iconic weapon Elementalists used for years.  It has large scale area of effect abilities that, not only do damage, but also provides healing, as well as crowd control.  This all sounds nice on paper, but the main reason for staff's use was none other than meteor shower.  This ability was so strong, that the weaknesses of staff were clouded.  In this day and age, staff is one of the least used weapons for Elementalist.

 

Staff is a bad weapon.  Guild Wars 2 is a fast-paced game.  The slow animations on staff's abilities hinder the weapon itself.  When the abilities land, there is little payoff.  When the abilities miss, the Elementalist is laughed at.  The utility of staff is not necessarily the problem.  The damage on staff is relatively ok, but compared to anything else you put on the table, the weapon is heavily lacking.  On top of this, the area coverage of the weapon is good when you use meteor shower, but other abilities lack the same qualities.  Lava font has turned into a small, but more consistent area or damage and eruption takes too long to deal the damage it needs to do.

 

Ultimately, staff Elementalist only sees play when we look at World vs World.  Meteor shower barely pumps out enough damage to down many players within one cast.  Other than that, staff Elementalist only has a few options in a warzone, including Arcane immobilizing and throwing down a few fire fields.  The utility staff can provide is excellent, but the damage identity is gone because of the change to meteor shower.  Meteor shower can be the iconic damaging ability for staff, but it should not define it.  The weapon should be defined by its nature.  On Elementalist specifically, staff should be a weapon that has lingering area of effects (regardless if it is crowd control, healing or damage) paired with devastating burst damage within a limited area.  We see this in every ability except for flame burst, burning retreat, gust, windborne speed, magnetic aura, and finally, shock wave.

 

The defensive and supportive abilities, like windborne speed can be argued for, however, it is clear that the biggest outliers are flame burst, gust, and shockwave.  These abilities not only need to be updated visually, but are completely unnecessary to have in the Elementalist's kit.  The damage on flame burst is poor and the burn on it is more deadly.  The argument could be that we need targets to be burning for the increased damage due to traits, but why not make flame burst do more raw damage?  Flame burst needs to be an ability that hits hard.  Simply put, after a single second of casting the ability, it could explode in the area in which the player chose and flame burst would be fine.  Gust and shockwave have equal problems.  They can both be reflected and gust is a single target ability.  Gust could easily cover a fan-shaped area to push several targets back instead of one.  Shockwave should be more impactful.  It is the fifth skill in earth attunement for staff.  Instead of a traveling invisible worm that penetrates through multiple targets, it should be wider and easier to hit.  On top of that, shockwave is doing condition damage when it should be power damage.

 

I could nitpick at a few other things like eruption not crippling people in the field before it erupts, or lava font not burning on every instant of damage, but I think I have said enough.  Even if meteor shower has its numbers increased, I think staff could be a more exciting weapon that what it currently is today.  I appreciate any debates, positive responses or for just simply giving this a read.  Have a good day everyone.

[Infusion.7149]

Staff elementalist isn't even very strong in WVW anymore, because unless you're casting it on a chokepoint there's so much superspeed (scrappers) and swiftness (heralds) you're only likely to get one or two hits of meteor in. That makes you more or less relegated to staff autos + lava font (which is pulsing so people walk right out of it, it's only saved by the low cooldown) + lightning surge along with slow moving dual attacks if you aren't tempest. You won't hit anyone moving with Ice Spike or Eruption.

With the removal of retaliation , tempest is generally much superior in WVW to weaver if you're willing to push in midrange or with a melee group. The risk/reward is better since overloads apply protection and break stun ; using "Aftershock" affords you immob + magnetic aura + protection all in one skill.

[HowlKamui.5120]

I will always respond in agreement with threads on this topic.

 

Staff ele NEEDS to be buffed. Imagine THE spellcaster class being bad at using a staff. A lot of people love playing the Wizard or the Sorcerer in RPGs. It's kinda weird that in GW2, the wizard class is a support or a melee fighter. Sure, different playstyles are nice. But ele needs to have a viable long-ranged-meteor-dropping archetype.

I agree with everything you said and would like to add that the weaver staff skills are also super unimpactful.

One thing I would super appreciate is if they made the air auto-attack be instant chain lightnings instead of super slow projectiles. It would look great if it was crackling lightning shooting out of the staff and instantly hitting the targets. Would be so much better at tagging things in Dragonfall or other meta events. 

 

Here's to hoping the hammer of the next elite spec is actually 1200 range weapon and it's the staff that we deserve.
 

Edited August 19, 2021 by mikdepadua.8376

[Darigostoaf.2509]

6 hours ago, mikdepadua.8376 said:

I will always respond in agreement with threads on this topic.

 

Staff ele NEEDS to be buffed. Imagine THE spellcaster class being bad at using a staff. A lot of people love playing the Wizard or the Sorcerer in RPGs. It's kinda weird that in GW2, the wizard class is a support or a melee fighter. Sure, different playstyles are nice. But ele needs to have a viable long-ranged-meteor-dropping archetype.

I agree with everything you said and would like to add that the weaver staff skills are also super unimpactful.

One thing I would super appreciate is if they made the air auto-attack be instant chain lightnings instead of super slow projectiles. It would look great if it was crackling lightning shooting out of the staff and instantly hitting the targets. Would be so much better at tagging things in Dragonfall or other meta events. 

 

Here's to hoping the hammer of the next elite spec is actually 1200 range weapon and it's the staff that we deserve.
 

Thanks for the reply!  I really am interested in the idea of hammer Elementalist.  It could even be a melee nuker.  Who knows?

[DanAlcedo.3281]

You know staff sucks when people hope that Hammer does what staff should do. 

 

Ranged AoEs. 

 

Buff Staff! 

[Ragebru.1397]

9 hours ago, Darigostoaf.2509 said:

Staff is a bad weapon.  Guild Wars 2 is a fast-paced game.  The slow animations on staff's abilities hinder the weapon itself. 

 

 

While I would typically agree that ele lacks, the staff is by far the best weapon for PvP content in groups. It dominates in WvW, and can be extremely useful in sPvP if played correctly. Still can push 500-750k heals with tempest staff without menders amulet. 

[SlitheSlivier.1908]

9 hours ago, jwhite.7012 said:

While I would typically agree that ele lacks, the staff is by far the best weapon for PvP content in groups. It dominates in WvW, and can be extremely useful in sPvP if played correctly. Still can push 500-750k heals with tempest staff without menders amulet. 

I play staff weaver in wvw. It does NOT dominate lol. It's only good in zergs, which is just one facet, and it's still not necessarily optimal. Cast times and projectile speed (esp weaver dual skills) are too slow. You can't spike when someone pulls. A lot of times by the time you cast 2-3 aoe skills, the enemy is already downed or you are dead/running. Also due to squishness, you have to spend a lot of time positioning instead of casting. 

 

Air staff is in a bad place; skill 3 should be combined into 4. 5 moved to the 3rd skill slot,  then an aoe lightning storm should be put into 5. Earth 5 i almost as underwhelming as air 5 and needs a buff.

 

Your damage is purely based on if you hit meteor shower perfectly or not. If not/ enemy doesn't sit in it, you will deal significantly less damage than any other class.  If you do... there is a High chance it will come out too late anyway. 

 

I play it bc i like the idea of it and it's fun to me. But it isn't necessarily the best. 

Edited August 20, 2021 by SlitheSlivier.1908

[Puck.3697]

12 hours ago, DanAlcedo.3281 said:

You know staff sucks when people hope that Hammer does what staff should do. 

 

Ranged AoEs. 

 

Buff Staff! 

 

Tbh there's litterally only one area of the game AoE is actually consistently useful and without weapon swap it'd have no answers to if u ended up in a 1v1

 

And tbh almost every ranged weapon sucks in most cases sadly 

 

I think more then just the weapons would have to change to create ranged gameplay alot of boons basically force you to stack ontop of your team to get and that puts u in melee with any weapon realistically

 

 

[Ragebru.1397]

3 hours ago, SlitheSlivier.1908 said:

I play staff weaver in wvw. It does NOT dominate lol. It's only good in zergs, which is just one facet, and it's still not necessarily optimal. Cast times and projectile speed (esp weaver dual skills) are too slow. You can't spike when someone pulls. A lot of times by the time you cast 2-3 aoe skills, the enemy is already downed or you are dead/running. Also due to squishness, you have to spend a lot of time positioning instead of casting. 

 

Air staff is in a bad place; skill 3 should be combined into 4. 5 moved to the 3rd skill slot,  then an aoe lightning storm should be put into 5. Earth 5 i almost as underwhelming as air 5 and needs a buff.

 

Your damage is purely based on if you hit meteor shower perfectly or not. If not/ enemy doesn't sit in it, you will deal significantly less damage than any other class.  If you do... there is a High chance it will come out too late anyway. 

 

I play it bc i like the idea of it and it's fun to me. But it isn't necessarily the best. 

Again, it's not really bad. In the right hands it's devastating. You have hard CC, decent damage spikes, but most importantly- healing. You have insane healing output. In WvW, you can 25 stack might solo just from the various blast finishers you have. In sPvP, you're able to root from a distance to easily land meteorshower. You have to realize that it's not an "in your face" weapon. It's a preparation weapon. Almost like marks are to a necro's staff. 

[Jski.6180]

13 minutes ago, jwhite.7012 said:

Again, it's not really bad. In the right hands it's devastating. You have hard CC, decent damage spikes, but most importantly- healing. You have insane healing output. In WvW, you can 25 stack might solo just from the various blast finishers you have. In sPvP, you're able to root from a distance to easily land meteorshower. You have to realize that it's not an "in your face" weapon. It's a preparation weapon. Almost like marks are to a necro's staff. 

In wvw you nearly have to exploit the game to make MS work by using it in places the reduces the randomness of the rock spawn.

[solemn.9608]

Problem with staff in wvw is that the people who say it doesn't need buffs are the ones (I've been this guy plenty of times not gonna lie) who are really just saying it's "not that bad man it's kinda OP" as if to really be saying: "kinda sucks but I'm so awesome that I make it work well /stroke ego".

 

It should be better than that lol

And outside of wvw and in some niche cases in pvp, it's not that good...

It's "good" if you're "great", ... Which mean it's not very good

[Sifu.9745]

I don't play Power Staff any more: too squishy and you need to stay in Fire Attunement most of the time, which makes the playstyle boring. Instead i play Tempest Celestial Staff (sometimes Weaver Celestial Staff too) and i am finally satisfied. Dmg is not bad with the right traits and skills,  If you rotate between Earth Eruption (great condi dmg) and Fire Flame Burst, Lava Font and Burning Retreat + Overload Fire and Overload Earth off course. Rarely i use Meteor Shower when i play solo pve. Water is great for support and healing, while Air sucks , i have to admit that.

With Celestial Staff you have great survivability in open world, great healing/support and not bad dmg. Maybe just 20 or 25% lower dmg than full Berserker Staff. Celestial scepter dmg is still higher but survivability and support is lower.

 

I would only like to see reduced power dmg on Fire auto attack, instead add some nice burning on it (or at least add some Bleeding on Earth AA). And some direct dmg buffs on Air Auto attack would be appreciated too. Staff has to be a hybrid weapon, not a pure power one!

Edited August 20, 2021 by Sifu.9745

[Ragebru.1397]

27 minutes ago, solemn.9608 said:

Problem with staff in wvw is that the people who say it doesn't need buffs are the ones (I've been this guy plenty of times not gonna lie) who are really just saying it's "not that bad man it's kinda OP" as if to really be saying: "kinda sucks but I'm so awesome that I make it work well /stroke ego".

 

It should be better than that lol

And outside of wvw and in some niche cases in pvp, it's not that good...

It's "good" if you're "great", ... Which mean it's not very good

Or how about we're rather using it for what its best at... supporting?

[fuzzyp.6295]

I know people here miss Staff and are upset that Dagger and Sword are more used now, but does anyone else remember when Staff was the ONLY viable option for Elementalist in PvE and WvW? Even on both Tempest and Weaver? The only other time you used anything beside Staff was to blast might with Scepter before engaging fights in PvE.  (Staff has never been a decent option in PvP outside of some sneaky Meteors on crowded points) We were locked into one weapon from 2012 till about 2018. I think its a good thing that the class has moved away from a single weapon meta. I recognize its been over nerfed to the point where its not as effective as it once was. But, I mean, it still hits like a truck under the right circumstances. I think thats fine, if you are willing to invest and go full glass and play with a group who can support you while you dps, then Staff is a real threat.

 

The fact that there is only one game mode where Staff shines (WvW) is a bummer, yes, but not ever weapon needs to be good in every game mode. Its just with Elementalist having such few options we really feel that sting as opposed to other classes.

 

I wouldn't be opposed to a update to the skills to bring them more into the current meta like reducing the casting time on Meteor or bring back a bit of the damage that was removed. But, idk, Staff in open world PvE is still fine, its never been a good option outside of a few risky plays in PvP and in high end PvE like raids it was meta till 2018ish anyway. We just need some QoL updates to the skills to make Staff feel alive again.

[Ragebru.1397]

24 minutes ago, fuzzyp.6295 said:

The fact that there is only one game mode where Staff shines (WvW) is a bummer, yes, but not ever weapon needs to be good in every game mode. Its just with Elementalist having such few options we really feel that sting as opposed to other classes.

This just doesn't make sense to me. A lot of AT tempests still run staff. There are three or four major pvp guilds that still even have it as meta for sPvP too. Now, I'll say it is significantly harder to pull off when you don't have a premade, but with that being said- so are a lot of builds lol..

 

[Darigostoaf.2509]

1 hour ago, jwhite.7012 said:

Or how about we're rather using it for what its best at... supporting?

Why should it only be used for supporting?

[fuzzyp.6295]

11 minutes ago, jwhite.7012 said:

This just doesn't make sense to me. A lot of AT tempests still run staff. There are three or four major pvp guilds that still even have it as meta for sPvP too. Now, I'll say it is significantly harder to pull off when you don't have a premade, but with that being said- so are a lot of builds lol..

 

 

Well like I said, if you have a team built to support you, you can use Staff no problem, regardless of game mode and whether it being for supportive or for offensive play. Staff is a weapon that requires a lot of investment and for you to get the most out of it, you usually need support in some way. It's not a weapon you can just throw on and expect to do well with, which is why players who just pick up staff expecting big chunky numbers are going to be disappointed. 

 

For the average player, Staff has one good game mode and thats honestly alright. Different weapons achieve different things, and where Staff shines is WvW because of its large AoE damage output. Staff healing is fine too if you're built for it, but its more niche than anything nowadays compared to other options.

 

EDIT: And more people use Staff for its control rather than straight up healing in support game play too.

Edited August 20, 2021 by fuzzyp.6295

[Infusion.7149]

44 minutes ago, fuzzyp.6295 said:

I know people here miss Staff and are upset that Dagger and Sword are more used now, but does anyone else remember when Staff was the ONLY viable option for Elementalist in PvE and WvW? Even on both Tempest and Weaver? The only other time you used anything beside Staff was to blast might with Scepter before engaging fights in PvE.  (Staff has never been a decent option in PvP outside of some sneaky Meteors on crowded points) We were locked into one weapon from 2012 till about 2018. I think its a good thing that the class has moved away from a single weapon meta. I recognize its been over nerfed to the point where its not as effective as it once was. But, I mean, it still hits like a truck under the right circumstances. I think thats fine, if you are willing to invest and go full glass and play with a group who can support you while you dps, then Staff is a real threat.

 

The fact that there is only one game mode where Staff shines (WvW) is a bummer, yes, but not ever weapon needs to be good in every game mode. Its just with Elementalist having such few options we really feel that sting as opposed to other classes.

 

I wouldn't be opposed to a update to the skills to bring them more into the current meta like reducing the casting time on Meteor or bring back a bit of the damage that was removed. But, idk, Staff in open world PvE is still fine, its never been a good option outside of a few risky plays in PvP and in high end PvE like raids it was meta till 2018ish anyway. We just need some QoL updates to the skills to make Staff feel alive again.

Quantify was using scepter and dagger mainhand in 2017 because warhorn offhand does so much damage

 

Really you're talking about 2012-2016 at best (pre-HoT). After HoT in WVW heralds were better and far less glass with CoR initially being 2s cooldown and because of raiding people were more concerned about DPS rather than cleave.

Raids:

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 20, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[Ragebru.1397]

7 minutes ago, fuzzyp.6295 said:

Staff healing is fine too if you're built for it, but its more niche than anything nowadays compared to other options.

 

Tempest staff is still my go to sPvP when i need to climb again. It wont let me post the ss, but I can consistently pull 200k dmg +350k-500k healing with breeze in sPvP. Before menders was removed I could easily pull 1mil+ 

In a premade, I can still pull 700-850k relatively easy.

[fuzzyp.6295]

2 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Quantify was using scepter and dagger mainhand in 2017 because warhorn offhand does so much damage

 

Really you're talking about 202-2016 at best (pre-HoT). After HoT in WVW heralds were better and far less glass with CoR initially being 2s cooldown.

Raids:

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wasn't Power Staff Weaver constantly the go to meta for raiding after its release? There may have been a period after HoT where Dagger was meta for raids, but I thought Staff came back into the meta once Weaver was released.

 

And yeah, Revs were better than Elementalists in WvW with CoR but that didn't mean Staff was suddenly not the elemenetalist weapon of choice in WvW. Tempests were still running Staff along with D/Wh in zergs at the time.

[fuzzyp.6295]

3 minutes ago, jwhite.7012 said:

Tempest staff is still my go to sPvP when i need to climb again. It wont let me post the ss, but I can consistently pull 200k dmg +350k-500k healing with breeze in sPvP. Before menders was removed I could easily pull 1mil+ 

In a premade, I can still pull 700-850k relatively easy.

 

I mean, thats awesome to hear, I'm glad you enjoy healing with staff. Its a great way to get good heals, thats always been the case which is why it was a Meta weapon for so long, it offered both DPS and Heal on Demand with its Water Fields. Niche doesn't mean bad, just means its not played as much.

 

I still very rarely see Tempest running Staff in sPvP and the times I do see it, they use it more for control and less for raw healing, at least as far as I can tell being on the opponents side. I'm glad to see you can pull in big heal numbers with Staff.

[Infusion.7149]

10 minutes ago, fuzzyp.6295 said:

 

Wasn't Power Staff Weaver constantly the go to meta for raiding after its release? There may have been a period after HoT where Dagger was meta for raids, but I thought Staff came back into the meta once Weaver was released.

 

And yeah, Revs were better than Elementalists in WvW with CoR but that didn't mean Staff was suddenly not the elemenetalist weapon of choice in WvW. Tempests were still running Staff along with D/Wh in zergs at the time.

Heralds brought a huge impact to WvW because CoR could more or less one shot eles then. In addition, perma-swiftness became common and draconic echo at release was 10 man so for 50 people you only need ~5 heralds. That drastically increased risk and lowered reward for meteor shower. In 2018 lava font was nerfed 40% damage-wise along with a change to meteor shower as well which more or less killed off staff.

Staff weaver gained popularity in PVE after ~2018 I believe because Elemental Polyphony gave ferocity instead of precision ; sword also became more attractive with the staff nerfs. Remember weaver came with PoF in 2017.

The reason staff was used in WVW is because retaliation made overload and lightning orb unusable, you want big hits not many small hits. Now since retaliation is removed tempest is arguably stronger than weaver in WVW if you're willing to push in midrange or with your scrappers. 2019 gyro rework with superspeed on gyros made staff elementalists of all types much less attractive , before that heal scrappers could not reliably provide superspeed and sneak gyro had an obvious tell.

Edited August 20, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[Ragebru.1397]

Screenshot on reddit of staff tempest before menders was removed.

 

I can upload some SS of my current temp staff pvp leaderboards, has significantly more damage.

 

Edited August 20, 2021 by jwhite.7012

[fuzzyp.6295]

39 minutes ago, Infusion.7149 said:

Heralds brought a huge impact to WvW because CoR could more or less one shot eles then. In addition, perma-swiftness became common and draconic echo at release was 10 man so for 50 people you only need ~5 heralds. That drastically increased risk and lowered reward for meteor shower. In 2018 lava font was nerfed 40% damage-wise along with a change to meteor shower as well which more or less killed off staff.

Staff weaver gained popularity in PVE after ~2018 I believe because Elemental Polyphony gave ferocity instead of precision ; sword also became more attractive with the staff nerfs. Remember weaver came with PoF in 2017.

The reason staff was used in WVW is because retaliation made overload and lightning orb unusable, you want big hits not many small hits. Now since retaliation is removed tempest is arguably stronger than weaver in WVW if you're willing to push in midrange or with your scrappers.

 

eh actually nevermind, I think I misremembered with regards to WvW, my mistake. I think I'm confusing what my guild ran with what my server preferred and what was meta at the time with Tempest.

Edited August 20, 2021 by fuzzyp.6295

[Darigostoaf.2509]

1 hour ago, fuzzyp.6295 said:

I know people here miss Staff and are upset that Dagger and Sword are more used now, but does anyone else remember when Staff was the ONLY viable option for Elementalist in PvE and WvW? Even on both Tempest and Weaver? The only other time you used anything beside Staff was to blast might with Scepter before engaging fights in PvE.  (Staff has never been a decent option in PvP outside of some sneaky Meteors on crowded points) We were locked into one weapon from 2012 till about 2018. I think its a good thing that the class has moved away from a single weapon meta. I recognize its been over nerfed to the point where its not as effective as it once was. But, I mean, it still hits like a truck under the right circumstances. I think thats fine, if you are willing to invest and go full glass and play with a group who can support you while you dps, then Staff is a real threat.

 

The fact that there is only one game mode where Staff shines (WvW) is a bummer, yes, but not ever weapon needs to be good in every game mode. Its just with Elementalist having such few options we really feel that sting as opposed to other classes.

 

I wouldn't be opposed to a update to the skills to bring them more into the current meta like reducing the casting time on Meteor or bring back a bit of the damage that was removed. But, idk, Staff in open world PvE is still fine, its never been a good option outside of a few risky plays in PvP and in high end PvE like raids it was meta till 2018ish anyway. We just need some QoL updates to the skills to make Staff feel alive again.

We are at a point in GW2 where many builds are currently being balanced very well.  There are other problem, but essentially, staff should be rewarding no?