What Caster is good with a Staff?

[SamuelW.2685]

Caster being Magic and such, no Thief or Rev as I looked and they're mostly physical 

I hear Ele is crap with a staff, normally mage is one of my fav archetypes in games so that's a huge disappointment, but what about the other classes?

[draxynnic.3719]

Kinda depends on what you want to do. If you're looking for mage as an archetype, mesmer might be a good alternative: mesmer staff is a pretty decent condition weapon, has a feel similar to a lightning mage even though it's technically all chaotic arcane energy rather than lightning, and staff mirage is a meta boon support/DPS hybrid option for endgame content.

Necromancer staff is a pretty effective AoE tool, although I personally find it a bit boring because everything apart from the autoattack is some variant of 'plant a mark on the ground that detonates when an enemy touches it', but YMMV.

Guardian staff is normally regarded as a healing support weapon, but it is a decent damage and utility weapon when playing solo. It just tends to be outperformed by sceptre/offhand in endgame content.

Druid staff I considered just not mentioning. Druid is pretty much pure support nowadays.

[Dadnir.5038]

First off, for what kind of gamemode do you ask this question?

- Elementalist's staff isn't really the best tool for sPvP or small scale PvP battle but it's far from being useless in large scale PvP battle (WvW zerg), open world PvE or even instanced PvE. All in all where it's good, it's good at control and healing all while having decent damage potential.

- Guardian's staff is a support tool with decent healing potential and boon output. You won't use it for damage, yet the AA can be qualified as "decent".

- Mesmer's staff is "okish" but it's hybrid nature won't allow it to give you a good "dps" feel. With mirage it's a strong support tool while, with other specs you'll mostly use it as a kitting weapon to control the fight.

- Necromancer's staff possibly have the worst AA of the game (slow and weak). The other skills are basically ranged trap that only hit once. It is an "ok" weapon to tag in a zerg and it does have strategical uses in competitive modes. However it's far from being able to give the "good spellcaster weapon" vibe.

- Druid's staff is a lot like mesmer's staff but, where mesmer's add damage, druid's add healing. In other word, it focus on controling the fight and adding sustain which make it one of the worst solo weapon of the game.

 

All in all, despite what the elementalist's community would say, it's elementalist's staff which is the closest to be the "good spellcaster weapon" in the widest part of the game. Only If your focus in small scale PvP will the elementalist's staff be a more arguable weapon choice than it would be for those other professions as elementalist is stuck with a single weapon while those other profession can swap weapons (There is at least a player that make it work there by compensating it's weakness with conjured weapons thought).

[Lysico.4906]

Mesmer    

[Atomnium.1532]

Mirage staff is probably the safest pick. Now because you didnt elaborate on the mode you would focus on, I'll assume it's for general PvE purpose.

Mirage staff has some unique strengths, can be 100% range, and if you really love staff you can actually staff/staff with endurance refresh on weapon swap, it's pretty standard and performs okay in most content. It provides alacrity to the surrounding players, caps might stacks and is arguably the safest and most versatile solo build.

It has a drawback tho, it is a slow ramp up as mentionned by someone else above and the dps feel is not what a heavy power build can do.

If you google mirage staff build, you'll probably find some similar builds with minor variances, but the main idea is to spam dodge, while having 3 clones and spam auto-attack while weapon swapping for endurance regen.

This build can feel like cheating in the sense that it's pretty much impossible to die and does good enough dps to ram through most hard content, however it can become boring since the gameplay loop is basically autoattack, spam dodge and wait for the ennemies to die from confusion, however it's probably the most solid staff caster build on the market.

[otto.5684]

Solo PvE, mesmer, though it wont feel like mage at all. 

[Tukaram.8256]

I use a staff with my necro, but I think the minions do more of the work.  He feels nothing like a mage, though. I miss my elementalist from GW. The elementalist in GW2 is terrible. I have found no characters that feel like a mage in this game. 

[Hotride.2187]

Guard for support (fb or core), core necro for not dying, condi mesmer if you got cele.

[SlipLihte.1307]

Mesmer staff is fun, and mirage is an ok choice for instanced pve content by providing alac.

 

Ele is not that great in pve, since a lot of staff abilities animation lock you, and then you die. It os used a bit in wvw though.

 

Necro is good on staff but doesn't feel like a caster.

[Buran.3796]

  Mesmer for PvE.

  Necro for everything.

[Poelala.2830]

Staff has been a staple for Mesmer and necromancer since launch 

[Poelala.2830]

On 6/12/2022 at 8:07 AM, Buran.3796 said:

  Mesmer for PvE.

  Necro for everything.

I don’t think necro staff has a place in PvE

[Wulfhearth.7962]

Wait for the 28th, there will be a balance patch where they might improve some underused traits and weapons. 

Maybe Staff Ele will get some love and will be fun and just what you are looking for afterwards.

Edited June 14, 2022 by Wulfhearth.7962

[Gibson.4036]

On 6/8/2022 at 8:35 PM, otto.5684 said:

Solo PvE, mesmer, though it wont feel like mage at all. 

This makes me curious as to what mage should feel like to you.

I suppose it's more "enchanter" than "wizard", but feels super magey to me.

[Buran.3796]

17 hours ago, Poelala.2830 said:

I don’t think necro staff has a place in PvE

   If for "PvE" you mean "I think that scepter and pistol do more damage to single target piñatas at raids" yes, you're rigth: in large teams covered by full stacks of might and perma quickness and alacrity other weapons do more damage. But is not like raids are the peak of PvE: they are played by a diminishing minority and aren't that great in terms of rewards. I don't think staff Necro has any problems at fractals and in OW PvE Hizen has videos soloing dozens of bounties with that weapon.

[Spie.5024]

Mirage (mesmer)