With all weapons going core, It would be nice to finally rework staff

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

Make warhorn the support weapon. Make staff the 1200 range dps weapon.

Having staff pushed into the support role was a huge waste. Ele needs a strong ranged dps weapon more than anything else right now.

[Khalisto.5780]

it would be glorious solely for the drama of ele getting another weapon rework

[oCynder.5136]

Even if we get a ranged weapon DPS. It won't matter much in PvE as it will just turn into melee range. Who knows the new pistol we're getting is just going to be another melee weapon. Even if we get a bow, still the same.

But I still miss the glorious days of staff ele before it just nerfed into oblivion.

[Dadnir.5038]

I'm pretty sure what they did to a few staff skills a few month ago was the devs' definition of a staff rework.

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

The only place where staff shine is WvW; catalyst + staff + the celerity elite skill = overkill, with jade sphere you can stack some mights, the fire augment, and spam 2 insane meteor showers (+ #2 - #3).

 

But overall, most of skills are outdated, particulary #2 #3, slow velocity, slow cast, long after-cast, poor effect.
I'm okai to have a slow cast weapon; but just give a huge buff to aera radius (like Lava font, meteor shower or geyser, wtf is those  tiny Aoe? ) and some boons somewhere so I could actually feel like a master of elements, and no  just a Slingshot caster.

[RazieL.5684]

3 hours ago, Zhaid Zhem.6508 said:

The only place where staff shine is WvW; catalyst + staff + the celerity elite skill = overkill, with jade sphere you can stack some mights, the fire augment, and spam 2 insane meteor showers (+ #2 - #3).

 

But overall, most of skills are outdated, particulary #2 #3, slow velocity, slow cast, long after-cast, poor effect.
I'm okai to have a slow cast weapon; but just give a huge buff to aera radius (like Lava font, meteor shower or geyser, wtf is those  tiny Aoe? ) and some boons somewhere so I could actually feel like a master of elements, and no  just a Slingshot caster.

So much this! Even though generally you will see 2k crits in a zerg most of the time on meteor shower i wouldn't call that "overkill" but the rest is all true! And with the tiny tiny buffs to staff that they did why were most of them pve only? And still staff in pve is pretty useless so it was all for nothing... are they scared that the squishiest class in the game might become worth playing or something?

[Kozumi.5816]

At this point I think Anet regrets adding staff to Ele.

[TrollingDemigod.3041]

11 hours ago, RazieL.5684 said:

So much this! Even though generally you will see 2k crits in a zerg most of the time on meteor shower i wouldn't call that "overkill" but the rest is all true! And with the tiny tiny buffs to staff that they did why were most of them pve only? And still staff in pve is pretty useless so it was all for nothing... are they scared that the squishiest class in the game might become worth playing or something?

The reason for those "2k crits in a zerg" are boons, yours and enemies. You can actually crit for 6k from Fireball if you have boons and enemy is light paper without any. On the other hand you'll deal 2k if lucky from same AA if you don't have boons and enemy does. So as long as A-net won't fix boons don't expect buffs to staff at all. If for example they buffed Lava Font and you'd do some 4-6k~ on buffed vs buffed scenario then suddenly you're gonna do 6k++ on buffed vs unbuffed scenarios with ease.
I'm all up for reworking staff, but I'd also be happy if they've brought alternative weapon to the table of 1.2k range like Longbow or even gave us Trident on land.

[RazieL.5684]

11 hours ago, TrollingDemigod.3041 said:

The reason for those "2k crits in a zerg" are boons, yours and enemies. You can actually crit for 6k from Fireball if you have boons and enemy is light paper without any. On the other hand you'll deal 2k if lucky from same AA if you don't have boons and enemy does. So as long as A-net won't fix boons don't expect buffs to staff at all. If for example they buffed Lava Font and you'd do some 4-6k~ on buffed vs buffed scenario then suddenly you're gonna do 6k++ on buffed vs unbuffed scenarios with ease.
I'm all up for reworking staff, but I'd also be happy if they've brought alternative weapon to the table of 1.2k range like Longbow or even gave us Trident on land.

I know that the thing is that when i want buffs to staff right now i never talk about numbers... the numbers talk was in response to the guy that said it's overkill and i just say it's not, it's just fine... what i want as buffs to staff are like for example lava font radius, or auto attack velocity, things that will make the staff better but wont break it like rev hammer or warrior skillflame

 

Ps correction longbow for ele 1500 range!

Edited July 2, 2023 by RazieL.5684

[soulknight.9620]

Dont get ur hopes high. Staff has been reworked a year ago. So the most realistic thing we could get is some nerfs to warhorn lol. 

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

53 minutes ago, soulknight.9620 said:

Dont get ur hopes high. Staff has been reworked a year ago. So the most realistic thing we could get is some nerfs to warhorn lol. 

Yep, I can already predict "balance" on hammer and warhorn because they'll be overperforming with weaver/catalyst (perhaps dual skills on hammer ; all dps buffs with lightning orbs ; sand squall...).

[Chyro.1462]

Yeah.. and then support tempest goes in the gutter cause they nerf warhorn for being too strong on other specs. Glorious days ahead.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

it doesn't really need a rework (besides meteor shower) but a buff, specifically giving one skill in each attunement the ammo treatment. imo fire 4, water 3, air 3, earth 4

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

1 hour ago, Stand The Wall.6987 said:

it doesn't really need a rework (besides meteor shower) but a buff, specifically giving one skill in each attunement the ammo treatment. imo fire 4, water 3, air 3, earth 4

For the last few years ivee been hoping for nothing more than projectile speed increases on the autos and weaver dual skills. Not even a buff, just a QoL improvement to make those skills not feel worthless.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

22 minutes ago, Paradoxoglanis.1904 said:

For the last few years ivee been hoping for nothing more than projectile speed increases on the autos and weaver dual skills. Not even a buff, just a QoL improvement to make those skills not feel worthless.

yep this 100%

[Einlanzer.1627]

I've said it one million times and will say it one million more. 

Staff doesn't work because, outside of Fire, it gives up too much damage for too much emphasis on support. In generalized play, utility will never compete with damage on equal terms. You fundamentally need to deal significant damage at all times, while utility and support are just bonuses. For that reason, most weapons in the game only give up a bit of damage for stronger utility. Meanwhile, Staff Water does like 1/4 the damage of most weapons, Earth about 1/2, and about Air 3/4. This makes all three of them near-useless outside of dedicated builds in large, organized group play, which for most players is only a tiny part of the game, or nonexistent. 

On top of that, because each attunement on staff is hyper specialized around utility gimmicks that have minimal synergy across the attunements, you're really only ever good in one attunement at a time based on your build, and it's usually Fire. Because of this, despite the fact that attunement swapping is designed to give Elementalists more versatility compared with weapon swapping, they actually get less versatility than weapon swap provides. So they basically end up with a bloat of mediocre to bad skills. Literally the only thing Staff has going for it is that it has 1200 range, so you're never really range locked the way you are with other weapons. But that isn't enough to compensate for its deficiencies.  

It's seriously mind-blowing how obviously bad the design is and how it's gone unaddressed for over a decade. I don't even understand the point, because it's not like you can be elite and pumping out damage and elite at healing at the same time anyway. They use different stats and traits.

The rework that it got last year doubled down on this approach when it clearly needed to be pulled back. Just astounding, really.

Edited July 7, 2023 by Einlanzer.1627

[Kozumi.5816]

On 7/7/2023 at 7:37 PM, Einlanzer.1627 said:

Because of this, despite the fact that attunement swapping is designed to give Elementalists more versatility compared with weapon swapping, they actually get less versatility than weapon swap provides. So they basically end up with a bloat of mediocre to bad skills.

This is why newer weapons like sword and Hammer are so much better designed, they don't just shove on "healing" with zero dps or "tanking" with zero DPS onto water/earth, those attunements still provide a meaningful amount of damage.

Ele's core weapons are so awful in comparison.

I main ENG now and kits are just a attunements with zero cooldown that I can choose which I want.

Attunements are awful.

Edited July 10, 2023 by Kozumi.5816

[solemn.9670]

On 7/1/2023 at 10:21 AM, Zhaid Zhem.6508 said:

The only place where staff shine is WvW; catalyst + staff + the celerity elite skill = overkill, with jade sphere you can stack some mights, the fire augment, and spam 2 insane meteor showers (+ #2 - #3).

 

But overall, most of skills are outdated, particulary #2 #3, slow velocity, slow cast, long after-cast, poor effect.
I'm okai to have a slow cast weapon; but just give a huge buff to aera radius (like Lava font, meteor shower or geyser, wtf is those  tiny Aoe? ) and some boons somewhere so I could actually feel like a master of elements, and no  just a Slingshot caster.

Double meteor shower takes the damage reduction per hit on the second meteor, no? I thought it would be cool but when I tried it last year it didnt do nearly as much as I expected it to. I guess casting them in two different spots would make sense

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

5 hours ago, solemn.9670 said:

Double meteor shower takes the damage reduction per hit on the second meteor, no? I thought it would be cool but when I tried it last year it didnt do nearly as much as I expected it to. I guess casting them in two different spots would make sense

Good question.
I'm pretty sure the damage reduction resets at second cast otherwise all hits would instantly be capped at 10% against rams, but It's hard to analyze this against Zerg and possibly only one* hit or two at best per target.

 

Otherwise, double shower + fire augment is fine but still it's not either as convenient as all weaver's buffs combined + fresh air + plasma blast / pyroclastic blast ... .

Edited July 12, 2023 by Zhaid Zhem.6508

[Riv.7456]

Definitely the most antiquated feeling weapon for Elementalists. Fire and Water skills are alright for doing damage and support respectively, while Air and Earth, outside a few specific utility skills, need some serious attention.

Fire could use a projectile/cast speed adjustment on 1 and 5. Perhaps tweak 5 further, as the damage it puts out in application is also inconsistent quite often. 

Water is probably the most solid, in that 1-5 can mesh together fairly well, with an almost pure focus on heal/cleanse support.

Air needs a significant boost in strike damage at the minimum. Even when taking into account the clear intent that Air is meant to be for aoe damage, it does not do that very well either. Honestly, the only reason I ever use Air is for the middling cc and swiftness buff, so skills 3 to 5.

Earth suffers from the same serious lack of damage issues as Air. It needs higher strike damage in general, as well as having 1 apply bleeding. In fact, just add more bleeding to 2 and 5 as well, on top of making 2 hit far quicker. As with Air, the niche utility from 3 and 4 are really the only reasons to swap to it. 

Edited July 14, 2023 by Riv.7456

[Acyk.9671]

56 minutes ago, Riv.7456 said:

Definitely the most antiquated feeling weapon for Elementalists. Fire and Water skills are alright, but not good or great, for doing damage and support respectively, while Air and Earth, outside a few specific utility skills, need some serious attention.

Fire could use a speed adjustment on 1 and 5, at the very least. Perhaps rework 5 further, as the damage it puts out in application is just inconsistent. 

Water is probably the most solid, in that 1-5 can mesh together fairly well, as long as the only desire is to provide heal/cleanse support.

Air needs a significant boost in strike damage at the minimum. Even when taking into account the clear intent that Air is meant to be for aoe damage, it does not do that very well either. Honestly, only reason I ever use Air is for the middling cc and swiftness buff, so skills 3 to 5.

Earth suffers from the same serious lack of damage issues as Air. It needs higher strike damage in general, as well as 1 applying bleeding. In fact just add more bleeding to 2 and 5 as well, on top of making 2 far quicker. As with Air, the niche utility from 3 and 4 are really the only reasons to swap to it. 

So you have an oldie but goodie utility weapon and you want to turn it into a dps weapon because? There are at least 2-3 solid skills per attunement we use for each encounter in WvW. 

[Polar.8634]

I always liked staff support, nice healer fantasy 

[Riv.7456]

20 hours ago, Acyk.9671 said:

So you have an oldie but goodie utility weapon and you want to turn it into a dps weapon because? There are at least 2-3 solid skills per attunement we use for each encounter in WvW. 

What? I at no point talked about stripping any existing utility from the staff, and most of my focus was on making what are already intended to be damage skills, for Air and Earth, actually be competitive with other damage skills, from Fire, on the staff. I would argue Fire and Water both have a full set of 5 useful skills, with Water Staff currently being my go to for most healing/support builds, and I simply want Air and Earth to have a similar full spectrum of usefulness. 

Edited July 14, 2023 by Riv.7456

[Downstate.4697]

Staff is a good weapon. This entire post exists because pve players want to fulfill their class fantasy and make staff good in support and dps roles.

what you will find after weapon proficiency comes out is how lacking in design direction some weapons are. A prime example is warhorn. Is it a support, boon, or damage weapon? Anet needs to make certain weapons have different functionality otherwise they are designing themselves into a corner.

[Emberheart.8426]

7 hours ago, Acyk.9671 said:

So you have an oldie but goodie utility weapon and you want to turn it into a dps weapon because? There are at least 2-3 solid skills per attunement we use for each encounter in WvW. 

All elementalist weapons are utility weapons. Not a great argument when warhorn ends up being used more frequently for utility while doing far more damage.