Staff on Elementalist?

[HowlKamui.5120]

On 8/24/2021 at 6:16 AM, kurosy.1384 said:

Ahh my fav weapon from my fav class ** Where should I start from?

- The most iconic weapon of a wizard being a niche weapon is just very meh to me (some guy in the 1st page said it better)
- Staff is completely absent in organized pve boss content. It's not even viable in any raid, both as dps and support. I'd really love playing staff as a dps, really :'c  Could be nice for burst healing but why using it, when auramancer gives so many boons including 25 might and healing at the same time working with wh? 
- in open pve, staff is viable (still like, the last choice someone would do when searching for a survive/dps balance) but tbh i think everything is viable in open pve, where everything comes down to player ability to kite, move and dodge. I just go berserker and it's completely fine, so imho this doesn't even count that much.
- WvW is the only place where staff damage is relevant. It's indeed the highest dps but only in the hands of an expert ele player and I doubt a weapon should be balanced to be viable only around the most expert players while being prohibitive for all the rest. Nevertheless, I have the feeling it's not a dps problem (even if a tiny bit more wouldn't bother) nor a meteor problem. I'd rather like seeing a rework of some skills so that we could be up with the fast pace of today's wvw and even be somehow relevant to our party.
- WvW Tempest support with staff is nice, but compared to support scrapper, it completely loses the fight on so many levels. And this is not limited to staff; sadly no matter what weapon you put on a supp Tempest, Scrapper will do it better. I don't understand why two spec covering the same role should also have such a gap in utility. I feel like it's not fair at all.
- I won't say much about duels and pvp cause i lack experience in that but i can't help but refer what all my high tier friends tell me: staff's not competitive enough.

Overall, it's the weakest weapon (in terms of playability) from the most high-effort-low-reward* class and is niche at best in the whole game. I think it deserves a tune up.

 

*Ye, as an Ele main i find gratification in many different things and evidently i enjoy staff very much, but here i'm talking about a "quality check" across-all-classes, something that makes Anet say "i'm cool about how this works out" and i doubt staff could check this box while having same-purpose specs doing three times the things a staff dps ele can do, with half the trouble an ele goes through.

Agreed on all points. 

Would also like to add than in T4 fractals and raids, Eles arent even wanted as a healer/ boon support because it does not provide any buffs aside from might, which is easily covered by other classes who *DO* provide unique buffs or access to quickness or alacrity. As for DPS roles, as you said, staff is completely absent.

[Zauber.4069]

We will never see rework on ele. They have problem to rework most broken classes - scourge and firebrand so I don't believe they care about how we feel about our class. They even already stated that they are very happy with ele.

 

Still I believe other weapons need more love than staff. At least staff is usufull in some game modes compare to scepter or d/d.

[Jski.6180]

Staff depends on other players too much where it use to be a wepon that other player depended on it. The old field support game play of the past vs raw numbers game play of the current.

Core ele even weaver lacks any type of unblockalbe to there attks effects to ever be a true dps wepon and it missing a lot of condi out put to be that hybread wepon. As well as losing out of support effects of fields due to power creep of support roll classes its become a mostly week wepon that only works with support from classes who have strips and roots on a high scale.

When the strongest water spell for staff is a 3 pulse effect that only clears when it apply reg (can be a double clear if traited but still base off of applying reg NOT the effect of the skill it self) making it something you can counter where other classes simply have clear when in the skill effect for 4+ pulses. As well as the water 1 skill being a lowest heal that must detainee (mostly though fire at the ground giving up some ranges to do so) but is still a projectiles that can be counter where you have other classes whom have a cone effect heal that heals for more and cant be counter. This is all from one kit the med kit on eng is effectively stronger then all of water atument staff ele and its trait.

Staff on ele is wildly under-powered in both dmg and support. It as well no longer fills that utility roll though fields. May be the new elite spec will bring new life to it on some level but anet seems to be willing to destroy old weapons to make sure the new weapons have use see weaver and sword and the endless dmg nerfs to staff.

That why i am suggesting anet hates ele all of the time and well it seems i am right most of the time.

[Darigostoaf.2509]

I am enjoying reading these posts even though we seemed to have clashed somewhere.  Thanks for the posts guys.  As for Jwhite and Mikdepadua, I think the both of you bring arguments to the table without any proof.  I do have experience in WvW fighting guilds and I do have experience in sPvP.  I can say for certain, that if you are looking for meta related builds, staff Weaver does not land in that category.  The damage is too slow and superspeed + stability exists.  Regardless of if you are Tempest or Weaver, you can not compete with any other build.  It is simply a fact at this point.  Damage readings that Arc DPS gives you does not give the best tell on what is meta or not.  Spike damage is always going to be lower than consistent damage in WvW.  If you down 5 people in a single, or even two hits with other damage sources to back you up of course, you will only be doing somewhere around 100k in that moment.  As a Revenant you can do this quite often.

 

The reason Weaver reaches higher numbers is because the damage is scattered and chaotic.  A single meteor will half health someone if you have 25 might.  This neither stops healing, nor does it kill someone before they move out of the area.  But because meteor + fire fields, you can easily reach 200k just off of the damage spread.  While this is damage being done, the argument Jwhite makes is without variables.  The healing and constant defenses a group has completely negates meteor shower these days.  Sure, against bad groups you may continue to destroy other groups, but the fact that top level guilds do not even run weaver in a tournament setting is because of their lack of spike damage.  People run Weaver in WvW because they have the easiest access to hit players or siege weapons on top of the walls.

20 hours ago, jwhite.7012 said:

Fire weaver /w staff is already the signature cleave for many MANY top guilds in WvW.

Be careful what you say here because if you do basic research for actual guild fights, Weaver is either not used, or it is complete negligible.  

If you watch this clip it shows that the Weaver player starts off well but falls off because the targets are mostly scattered.  This is a great explanation as to what problems staff has.  It is all in meteor shower.  This is in theory bad design.  I do not know what skill level these Weavers are, but this guild as you can see is beyond decent and has been posting videos consistently.  The more targets that are stacked, the more damage the Weaver does.  I think that says enough about the nature of staff already.

 

https://gw2mists.com/builds even GW2mists don't think Weaver is that good in big scale fights.  Small scale is still under construction, but I can definitely tell you that small scale fights are not Weaver's strength.  Weaver seems ok when put into a mess, but when they find themselves in organized styles of play, they almost seem out of place.  At least that is how I feel when I play staff Weaver these days.  I don't see the impact.

[Darigostoaf.2509]

21 minutes ago, Jski.6180 said:

Staff depends on other players too much where it use to be a wepon that other player depended on it. The old field support game play of the past vs raw numbers game play of the current.

Core ele even weaver lacks any type of unblockalbe to there attks effects to ever be a true dps wepon and it missing a lot of condi out put to be that hybread wepon. As well as losing out of support effects of fields due to power creep of support roll classes its become a mostly week wepon that only works with support from classes who have strips and roots on a high scale.

When the strongest water spell for staff is a 3 pulse effect that only clears when it apply reg (can be a double clear if traited but still base off of applying reg NOT the effect of the skill it self) making it something you can counter where other classes simply have clear when in the skill effect for 4+ pulses. As well as the water 1 skill being a lowest heal that must detainee (mostly though fire at the ground giving up some ranges to do so) but is still a projectiles that can be counter where you have other classes whom have a cone effect heal that heals for more and cant be counter. This is all from one kit the med kit on eng is effectively stronger then all of water atument staff ele and its trait.

Staff on ele is wildly under-powered in both dmg and support. It as well no longer fills that utility roll though fields. May be the new elite spec will bring new life to it on some level but anet seems to be willing to destroy old weapons to make sure the new weapons have use see weaver and sword and the endless dmg nerfs to staff.

That why i am suggesting anet hates ele all of the time and well it seems i am right most of the time.

You have to remember that we have a new balance team these days.  Almost all of the changes have been positive.  CMC may save us yet another weapon.  Who knows?  The teams behind the game seem to be getting better and better.

[Ragebru.1397]

5 hours ago, Darigostoaf.2509 said:

https://gw2mists.com/builds even GW2mists don't think Weaver is that good in big scale fights.  Small scale is still under construction, but I can definitely tell you that small scale fights are not Weaver's strength.  Weaver seems ok when put into a mess, but when they find themselves in organized styles of play, they almost seem out of place.  At least that is how I feel when I play staff Weaver these days.  I don't see the impact.

I don't use gw2mists, or metabattle so I can't really speak to that. I just know that every guild I'm a part of as well as the DB discord use it as a staple comp.

edit: their guild websites/discord

 

GoTL, was even using it feverishly up until they transferred. It an open field battle, sure it can lack, but when controlling lord rooms or even working angles up and down stairs/walls its very strong. Definitely subjective to say the least, but there are a lot of guilds that don't publicly post their builds. I haven't been with DB all that long, but I will say they have 2-3 builds that they use that are strictly dependent on where they plan on engaging. Sometimes they go warrior heavy, sometimes they only incorporate 2-3 warriors for the whole zerg. 

 

So yea, I'll admit it may not be meta across the board, but there are certainly guilds that implement it into their comp. Guess it boils down to specifics at the end of the day, but yea. I shared my experiences with it, even posted the builds that I use. All I can do at the end of the day lol

Edited August 25, 2021 by jwhite.7012

[Ragebru.1397]

6 hours ago, Darigostoaf.2509 said:

https://gw2mists.com/builds even GW2mists don't think Weaver is that good in big scale fights.  Small scale is still under construction, but I can definitely tell you that small scale fights are not Weaver's strength.  Weaver seems ok when put into a mess, but when they find themselves in organized styles of play, they almost seem out of place.  At least that is how I feel when I play staff Weaver these days.  I don't see the impact.

https://hardstuck.gg/gw2/builds/elementalist if we're going off of guilds that utilize staff and where they use them. Raids, WvW, and open world. HS hosts competitions frequently. Often with very large prize pools, so can't see why they would be using them if they weren't viable. 

Edited August 25, 2021 by jwhite.7012

[Jski.6180]

23 hours ago, Darigostoaf.2509 said:

You have to remember that we have a new balance team these days.  Almost all of the changes have been positive.  CMC may save us yet another weapon.  Who knows?  The teams behind the game seem to be getting better and better.

Its an old problem that never has been fixed there are missing tools from the ele kit that only ele seems to be missing even though its marketed as a jake of all triads class. Staff is just a realty good example of this. Weaver is missing any type of aggressive utility even though it is the dps elite tempest is missing strong support boons even though its the support elite spec and core ele is missing a lot of stander effects even though its the true jack of all trides set up.

Earth realty should be full of unblockables and non crit attks. Water should be full of strong burst heals and condi clears. Fire should be full of burning effects. Air should be full of high crit and fast attks. Sadly this is not ture for staff over all.

I suggest:

Earth Staff skills:

1. Should go though targets up to 5 and be unblockable as well as applying some bleed.

2. No longer can crit but is unblockable.

3. Stay the same.

4. Applys bleeds when ppl go though or hit the wall.

5. No longer can crit but is unblockable.

Water staff skills:

1. Heals every one it pass though as well as "blows up" maybe diffrent heal amounts. As well as becomes unblockable.

2. Apply reg on fall.

3. Has a strong heal at the end of the effect.

4. Applys Resolution.

5. Just simply clears 1 condi ever sec for 5 targets for 5 sec each condi clear this way gives the players reg. It still gives reg out but the reg no longer is a "strong reg" (that dose not seem to work atm any way).

Fire staff skills:

1. Applys burning or is back to a 5 target effect.

2. Applyes burning.

3. A 2ed hit effect where there is added strong burning / low dmg at the location of the Flame Burst.

4. Stays the same.

5. Has an after effect of each rock that walls to do a small Flame burst 160 aoe burning low dmg.

Air staff skills:

1. Dose much higher crit dmg per target it hits. Example first target is +10% crit 2ed target is +15% 3ed target is +25%.

2. Dose higher crit dmg.

3. If you intrup you get quinkness per target hit.

4. Dose a pulseing dmg inside the field and stuns every one inside on the first cast of the field.

 

Maybe too much power creep but that in genral what i want to see for staff and ele over all.

[kurosy.1384]

On 8/25/2021 at 6:56 PM, Darigostoaf.2509 said:

Damage readings that Arc DPS gives you does not give the best tell on what is meta or not.  Spike damage is always going to be lower than consistent damage in WvW.  If you down 5 people in a single, or even two hits with other damage sources to back you up of course, you will only be doing somewhere around 100k in that moment.  As a Revenant you can do this quite often.

 

The reason Weaver reaches higher numbers is because the damage is scattered and chaotic.  A single meteor will half health someone if you have 25 might.  This neither stops healing, nor does it kill someone before they move out of the area.  But because meteor + fire fields, you can easily reach 200k just off of the damage spread.  While this is damage being done, the argument Jwhite makes is without variables.  The healing and constant defenses a group has completely negates meteor shower these days.

Oh right, while stating weaver has the highest dps i just skipped this very important detail. Even tho you may go 1st in damage, the damage itself is not so relevant most of the times. It's mostly a "number farm" as some pro guy said in one of our night fights. Basically as a weaver, you see some big number on big groups, you constantly spam stuff and eventually get something with your aoe and farm your arc dps numbers.

But since damage nerf, one person damage alone will not be able to down a player into a decent group. What you actually need is coordination between the scourges that strip the defensive boons and dps classes (revs, core guards and so on) to place precise and quick damage bombs at the given time, possibly into a warrior bubble full of CC.

And as a dps weaver, if you manage to put your long cast meteor into that bubble together with some nice earth/air cc and following up with other aoe, then you're doing the right thing. But outside of this coordinated situation, all the damage you're doing against a decent group just gets mitigated and healed up as quick as possible, thus will be irrelevant by itself.

 

Quote

https://hardstuck.gg/gw2/builds/elementalist if we're going off of guilds that utilize staff and where they use them. Raids, WvW, and open world. HS hosts competitions frequently. Often with very large prize pools, so can't see why they would be using them if they weren't viable. 

Yeah well the fact that those builds exist in all those game modes doesn't mean that they're actually efficient. And i'm telling this as someone who only goes around as a staff weaver for my own entertainment.
Look at that support/boon tempest. It merely heals his squad. Of a ton. But just that. No damage modifiers, no 25 might for the whole fight. Any other healer could manage to keep their squad alive while providing something more than that.
It could be turned into something useful if you wear minstrel and go as healing tank, allowing your squad to get one more dps as you're actually covering two roles. But as it is, it's only taking a spot that could be used better.
And if you have a group of pve raiders who don't care about maxing the efficiency and are fine with whatever their members wanna play, well, lucky for you, but this is still niche among the raid players.

Won't talk again about those pve/wvw builds cause it's been said a lot already.

[Ragebru.1397]

12 minutes ago, kurosy.1384 said:

Look at that support/boon tempest. It merely heals his squad. Of a ton. But just that. No damage modifiers, no 25 might for the whole fight. Any other healer could manage to keep their squad alive while providing something more than that.

That is entirely a trait issue, not the staff mechanics. Traits would have to be reworked if you're wanting a useful boon mechanic such as quickness and alac. While I will say the might durations are low, that again falls under a trait issue, not necessarily the staff. As far as raw healing numbers however, I would argue that nothing comes close. I haven't seen the healer scrapper numbers though, so not entirely sure on that tidbit. 

[kurosy.1384]

Yes, it's definitely traits issue, i agree on that. But, for example, a support tempest can be more useful already using d/w since it allows more stable auras and boons. But I agree on the fact that staff may actually be designed to have a raw heal potential in the support scenario instead of auras and boons. And it's not a bad thing per se, the problem is how much irrelevant is raw healing alone, compared to all the existing boons and traits. Boon supports can still heal efficiently while giving essential boons so basically there is no such situation where you must bring a staff tempest to prevent squad death.

Overall, I fear the staff weakness is stricly bound to the elementalist traits/mechanic weakness. Would a dps weaver be more useful if it had a fire trait sharing damage modifier with its party? Would a tempest healer be more wanted if its cleanses would also grant stab or conversion to boons? Sure they would!

I may be on the edge of off topic here, but it's really hard to talk about staff, pretending the rest of the class is just ok.

[Darigostoaf.2509]

It is strange isn't it?  Elementalist has synergies and builds that have these powerful roles, however, they are completely brushed off because a few builds have a more potent power level in terms of utility.  I realize that those are problems too.  I was over the moon when I saw the trait rework for Elementalist.  It fixed a lot of problems in their traits, but when the other professions got the same treatment, everything started outclassing Elementalist in general.  They have been reduced to being played just because people are bored.  I only play my Elementalist because I have simply loved the mechanics.  Elementalist feels like a fair version of the game where as everything else seems to be either broken or power crept.  It is quite saddening.  I feel like Elementalist should have some buffs in terms of utility (maybe rework the awful design of arcane).  Not only that, but the outliers should be broken down a bit (Firebrands, Scrapper maybe and Scourge).

Edited August 26, 2021 by Darigostoaf.2509

[Infusion.7149]

21 hours ago, Darigostoaf.2509 said:

It is strange isn't it?  Elementalist has synergies and builds that have these powerful roles, however, they are completely brushed off because a few builds have a more potent power level in terms of utility.  I realize that those are problems too.  I was over the moon when I saw the trait rework for Elementalist.  It fixed a lot of problems in their traits, but when the other professions got the same treatment, everything started outclassing Elementalist in general.  They have been reduced to being played just because people are bored.  I only play my Elementalist because I have simply loved the mechanics.  Elementalist feels like a fair version of the game where as everything else seems to be either broken or power crept.  It is quite saddening.  I feel like Elementalist should have some buffs in terms of utility (maybe rework the awful design of arcane).  Not only that, but the outliers should be broken down a bit (Firebrands, Scrapper maybe and Scourge).

Tempest would be useful in PVE if the RNG on overload air and lightning orb weren't so bad on small hitboxes. The benchmark  damage isn't the problem (~36-37K for power/condi and more with allies), it's the damage in practice that is. There's only several places you really excel with power tempest: W3 keep construct (big cleave for adds and it has a large hitbox , although with low damage pressure holo is generally better), W4 samarog (giant hitbox , can push if running offhand warhorn using water attunement), and W6 conjured amalgamate (massive hitbox, can "rebound" the clap). Arguably also decent on W2 slothasor due to add control and the giant hitbox.

Weaver needs more damage and better self-might generation (you get fury on power builds already and condi weaver builds are just difficult in general) for solo scenarios because unless you run arcane you won't have might from your build. Fire+air + weaver is the default power build while fire+earth+weaver is the default condi build. The hit to pyromancer's puissance to expend 10 might really hurt weavers, it should have removed 1-2 stacks of might at most if you don't use overload fire.
 

Yes you are correct FB+ ren + scourge are overperforming. In a mightyteapot stream that was linked elsewhere to people regarding harbinger he stated that harbinger should have a bit less DPS than weaver while scourge / cQB should be 25-26K DPS , cFB should be 30K, and condi ren should be 36K when not providing alac (instead of current 40-41k).

Edited August 27, 2021 by Infusion.7149

[Swagg.9236]

The ability to effortlessly cast overload skills doesn't magically make the baseline capabilities of something else "good" by association; and making everything about staff either resolve faster or hit harder is just playing into the same demands that have consistently made GW2 worse over its lifepsan.  Staff is probably one of the few decent weapon kit designs in GW2, and the reason why it feels super limited is because it's fair; it's part of a team-centric playstyle rather than the current metagame's low-effort, one-man-army which tends to work like a solitaire game rather than promoting actual interactions between PvP participants.

[kurosy.1384]

I can agree with that. Nevertheless, the game is moving on to something different from what it used to be years ago and this is a fact, wheter good or bad. I don't think Anet is gonna balance every weapon and class back to a "fair" state just cause a bunch of stuff in Ele are "fair". Here we have a disparity between one class (with one weapon in particular) and the majority of other classes&other weapons and stating that it once was good won't solve the problem (which imho is the gap itself).

[Darigostoaf.2509]

On 8/28/2021 at 12:29 PM, Swagg.9236 said:

The ability to effortlessly cast overload skills doesn't magically make the baseline capabilities of something else "good" by association; and making everything about staff either resolve faster or hit harder is just playing into the same demands that have consistently made GW2 worse over its lifepsan.  Staff is probably one of the few decent weapon kit designs in GW2, and the reason why it feels super limited is because it's fair; it's part of a team-centric playstyle rather than the current metagame's low-effort, one-man-army which tends to work like a solitaire game rather than promoting actual interactions between PvP participants.

This is such a black and white statement to me.  The point of staff is to be a rewarding, massive AOE, multi support weapon, yes, but asking for staff to hit harder is not the only thing being asked for here.  This post was specifically to change or rework some of the skills in staff.  Added damage will not change what makes staff an awkward weapon.  It is fun to play, yes, but that is only because we are blinded by the beauty of its abilities.  It is very true that some of the abilities in staff make no sense what so ever.  There should not be condition damage based abilities on staff.  Let's not forget people have to stand in the AOEs to actually achieve the full value of staff.  There is so much grey area with the weapon and the game itself.  The least we can do is come up with ideas for what staff could possibly need.  I hate to play the weapon just to see I am literally spamming anything on CD other than Meteor because it is one of the only impactful skills on the entire weapon set.

[Loke.1429]

ele balance is a long running joke, especially staff

[Tayga.3192]

I play Power Staff Weaver in WvW and I feel like my actual weapon is Conjure Fiery Greatsword and the staff is just a filler lol. 

I think earth 5 should swap places with earth 3 so weavers can have at least one reflect. 

Also staff weaver is not squishy at all. I used to play it with berserker stats. You have two good defensive ccs, evade on fire 4 and soft cc removal on air 4. I slot 3 defensive utilities (Twist of Fate, Lightning Flash, Mist Form). Worst case scenario, you can run away with Fiery GS. 

[Swagg.9236]

On 9/2/2021 at 9:52 PM, Darigostoaf.2509 said:

This is such a black and white statement to me.  The point of staff is to be a rewarding, massive AOE, multi support weapon, yes, but asking for staff to hit harder is not the only thing being asked for here.  This post was specifically to change or rework some of the skills in staff.  Added damage will not change what makes staff an awkward weapon.  It is fun to play, yes, but that is only because we are blinded by the beauty of its abilities.  It is very true that some of the abilities in staff make no sense what so ever.  There should not be condition damage based abilities on staff.  Let's not forget people have to stand in the AOEs to actually achieve the full value of staff.  There is so much grey area with the weapon and the game itself.  The least we can do is come up with ideas for what staff could possibly need.  I hate to play the weapon just to see I am literally spamming anything on CD other than Meteor because it is one of the only impactful skills on the entire weapon set.

I must have misinterpreted your intent, then.  More often than not, it seems that the GW2 playerbase likes to pretend that slapping extra damage onto skills, baking in some passive evasion/blocking or lowering cast times are the keys to making underutilized weapons "good" or "rewarding" in this game.  I share your sentiment about how staff ele feels a little more engaging than basically any other setup in this game.  That said, spamming skills off CD is tragically just the way GW2 was designed to operate, and it doesn't seem like anet or the playerbase is willing to admit that there are any problems with that paradigm or consider changing it in any significant way.  You'll need to instead change staff in a way to affect the fact that opponents are just going to faceroll the keyboard regardless of what they target (ala a full-bar GW1 Assassin chain).

I drew this up ages ago because I just wanted staff to do what it has always done but still manage to have a few answers to all the easy mode bs built into every build in GW2.
https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/topic/51430-staff-buffs/