Siege turtle gets projectile improvements, but still nothing for staff ele.

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

 

Quote

 

Siege Turtle

• Jade Cannon: Increased the rate of fire and projectile speed

 

So siege turtle gets proj speed increase, but staff weaver cant after 5 years of the weapon being basically unusable outside of stationary large hitbox fights, which it was nerfed for shortly after PoF came out so its been exclusively a WvW zerg weapon and pvp kiting weapon. Plasma blast, pytoclastic blast, pressure blast, monsoon, every auto... Ill never understand why anet has avoided including one of the most iconic rpg character archetypes as a viable build in their game for over 10 years.

[scerevisiae.1972]

while you for sure have a point about the design stupidity that was hammer, and lack of attention given to ele utilities that are missing (arcane elite, signet elite still missing after 11 years...) or have been left unusable (most conjures & glyphs, glyph trait) since forever, i don't think staff is weak. The strength of staff is not damage so much as its CC.

The 1 skill on staff that isn't really worth the slot to me is fire 3, but slap a blind on it (or maybe just more power damage) and staff is pretty much fine.

Edited October 31, 2023 by scerevisiae.1972

[MarzAttakz.9608]

Yeah I'm with you mostly on Staff. I do appreciate the support changes make no mistake (I'm a WvW staff support Tempest main) and most of my criticism is centered around competitive modes (compare the differences in skills between PvE and Competitive).

However I've played since Beta and got to experience staff's full glory from before day one.

It and to a degree the justifications for the Balance Philosophy of the class haven't aged well. The reasoning behind many nerfs we received in the first couple of years are no longer relevant. They did a 180 on those philosophies and never undid any of the nerfs. Simple example: Lightning flash not being a stunbreak because it does damage, we don't use it to damage, we use it to survive. It's not 1200 range because damage. Take the damage away and make it a copy of Blink.

How many more years are we going to ask for a projectile speed increase, the removal of self-rooted channels, better access to stability or changes to Static Field and Unsteady Ground. But they changed Gale, great stuff!

The bottom line for me at this point is that the calibre of the studio today is far below the calibre of the studio ten years ago. 11 years is a good run, how many more can we expect?

[Nup.4591]

I really want staff to be good.

Next patch they are buffing hammer because it is underperforming compared to sword/warhorn..

Where is staff? ;-;

 

[drubid.6482]

But also, this is for the siege turtle ranger pet. Pets have received VERY little attention over the years, and this is one of many changes to a profession-defining class feature. It wasn't just, "Hmm, siege turtle could use some tuning!"

Edited November 1, 2023 by drubid.6482

[Nup.4591]

Yeah, true. I'm very happy the ranger pets got some love to be honest!

[Loke.1429]

On 11/1/2023 at 12:16 PM, drubid.6482 said:

But also, this is for the siege turtle ranger pet. Pets have received VERY little attention over the years, and this is one of many changes to a profession-defining class feature. It wasn't just, "Hmm, siege turtle could use some tuning!"

they hire a ranger main so suddenly it is getting half the updates? Their priorities are wrong imo. Way too much dev personal (biased) choice on what to fix, often resulting in to little of what is really needed. This is not new either, it was always like that. The ranger pet changes and some others were very good changes though, but still.

And yeah staff needs an overhaul bigtime

Edited November 9, 2023 by Loke.1429

[peperoncino.2516]

50 minutes ago, Loke.1429 said:

they hire a ranger main so suddenly it is getting half the updates? Their priorities a fk'ed imo. Way too much dev personal (biased) choice on what to fix, to little of what is really needed. This is not new either, it was always like that. Some of the ranger pet changes were very good changes though, but still.

going by that logic, ele main has to be hired for any meaningful changes to happen... 

[zeyeti.8347]

Staff is now mostly a support weapon with meh damage , meteor shower one of the most iconic spells of previous gw is now meteor sprinkles , not even worth casting 

And even as a support it's largely beated by the warhorn who has amazing support skills (fire 4 and earth 4 with 600 radius boon...) , an overhaul to this weapon will be indeed appreciated , after all it's the symbolic weapon of every caster in other rpg games, i would rather play warhorn with no mainhand than staff alone ...

[ZephidelGRS.9520]

On 10/31/2023 at 8:53 AM, scerevisiae.1972 said:

The 1 skill on staff that isn't really worth the slot to me is fire 3, but slap a blind on it (or maybe just more power damage) and staff is pretty much fine.

But it already does cause blindness though.

I'd say the skills that aren't worth their slot more are the entire Air skillset. What's the point for any of these? Weak strike damage, no condi for a condi class/weapon, no meaningful boons for any support roles, and pitiful CC for a supposedly CC kit.

At least Fire burns (please add Burning to Meteor Shower too please, it's the only FIRE skill that doesn't somehow BURN), Water heals, and Earth bleeds/cripples and shares Stability.

Edited November 4, 2023 by ZephidelGRS.9520

[scerevisiae.1972]

13 hours ago, ZephidelGRS.9520 said:

But it already does cause blindness though.

Wow, TIL. Can see from patch notes it was added in Feb 14 patch but TBH I took a 6month break from GW2 and missed that change. 

Of all the weapons that Ele has though I would be changing hammer first (add more ranged skills, make it a real midrange hybrid weapon), then warhorn (make several of the skills come out faster).

I can't speak to PVE cause I avoid it as much as possible but is there really any reason you can't just play staff and take a small DPS hit? the boss is still going to die, just 5-10 seconds later.

Edited November 4, 2023 by scerevisiae.1972

[zeyeti.8347]

10 hours ago, scerevisiae.1972 said:

Wow, TIL. Can see from patch notes it was added in Feb 14 patch but TBH I took a 6month break from GW2 and missed that change. 

Of all the weapons that Ele has though I would be changing hammer first (add more ranged skills, make it a real midrange hybrid weapon), then warhorn (make several of the skills come out faster).

I can't speak to PVE cause I avoid it as much as possible but is there really any reason you can't just play staff and take a small DPS hit? the boss is still going to die, just 5-10 seconds later.

Sorry my ego can't afford my ele to be beated dps wise by an afk pew pew mech , while i swet blood on my keyboard and he is jerk**g off with two hands in front of his screen.

And what do you call a small dps hit ? 10k ? not small at all...

Also you know there are many toxic groups in pugs who can just throw you away if you don't bring up something to the table, and what does ele staff bring up to the table ? CC ? No , Dps ? No , Boons ? No , Healing ? we don't care we have a firebrand/druid/herald/hscg...

 

[scerevisiae.1972]

54 minutes ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

Sorry my ego can't afford my ele to be beated dps wise by an afk pew pew mech , while i swet blood on my keyboard and he is jerk**g off with two hands in front of his screen.

And what do you call a small dps hit ? 10k ? not small at all...

Also you know there are many toxic groups in pugs who can just throw you away if you don't bring up something to the table, and what does ele staff bring up to the table ? CC ? No , Dps ? No , Boons ? No , Healing ? we don't care we have a firebrand/druid/herald/hscg...

 

all fair points. the unique thing about ele is the amount of AOE it packs, but yeah not useful on a lot of encounters where you just need to tank'n'spank the boss. the utility on the weap is also decently high as well FWIW, 2x water fields (blasted for heals by dps players), 2x fire fields (blasted for might, additional burning dps), lightning field (additional cc & vuln), ice field/frost aura (10% reduced dmg). it's not nothing.   

[Loke.1429]

On 11/3/2023 at 7:18 PM, peperoncino.2516 said:

going by that logic, ele main has to be hired for any meaningful changes to happen... 

Well, the one we have plays melee builds in spvp and doesnt like wvw so...

Edited November 6, 2023 by Loke.1429

[Einlanzer.1627]

On 10/31/2023 at 4:11 AM, MarzAttakz.9608 said:

Yeah I'm with you mostly on Staff. I do appreciate the support changes make no mistake (I'm a WvW staff support Tempest main) and most of my criticism is centered around competitive modes (compare the differences in skills between PvE and Competitive).

However I've played since Beta and got to experience staff's full glory from before day one.

It and to a degree the justifications for the Balance Philosophy of the class haven't aged well. The reasoning behind many nerfs we received in the first couple of years are no longer relevant. They did a 180 on those philosophies and never undid any of the nerfs. Simple example: Lightning flash not being a stunbreak because it does damage, we don't use it to damage, we use it to survive. It's not 1200 range because damage. Take the damage away and make it a copy of Blink.

How many more years are we going to ask for a projectile speed increase, the removal of self-rooted channels, better access to stability or changes to Static Field and Unsteady Ground. But they changed Gale, great stuff!

The bottom line for me at this point is that the calibre of the studio today is far below the calibre of the studio ten years ago. 11 years is a good run, how many more can we expect?

 

The fundamental problem is deceptively simple. You can't balance support and damage as though they are equivalent when they aren't, and that's what they have tried to do with staff. All weapons and attunements need to deal at least decent damage on their own, period. Utility & support bolster damage, they don't replace it.

Water having about 1/5 the damage output of fire is absurd nonsense that's made even worse when you realize that damage and healing don't use the same stats so it's impossible to be great at both anyway. Earth is only a bit better, and Air is okay-ish but still undertuned for general play. Thief pistol used to be another good example of this problem until they fixed it (compounded by the necessity of good damage output on the #1 skill due to how energy works on thief.) 

The whole methodology of having each attunement built around 1 or 2 types of support and only letting Fire have respectable damage output is fundamentally broken. It will keep staff trapped as a clunky, highly situational weapon only suitable for certain very specific builds in specific game modes. And that's a  shame because "wizard with a staff" is the most iconic and reasonable-to-expect expression of magic user archetypes in all of fantasy. 

It means GW2 is missing something extremely core to its identity. I really don't know who keeps making (or failing to make) these decisions, but it seems they are stuck in an ideological bubble and not thinking critically about the situation. 

Edited November 6, 2023 by Einlanzer.1627

[Loke.1429]

On 11/3/2023 at 6:26 PM, Loke.1429 said:

...

I was complaining a bit about the priorities in that post (due to lack of WB nerf).

I wanted to add that quality of the balance changes was much higher this patch, with some huge quality of life. Much more postive changes for WvW than usual too. I believe we can thank Trig and others for both of those. Looking forward to great changes from him going forward. QoL changes for ele staff please?

Edited November 9, 2023 by Loke.1429

[CETheLucid.3964]

I wouldn't say no to a rate of fire and projectile speed buff. That's fair enough some projectiles, particularly the dual attacks from weaver, are painfully slow. QoL would be great. Don't know about 'unusable' though. Laying it on a bit too thick there.

[Gwynnion.7364]

On 11/6/2023 at 12:53 PM, Einlanzer.1627 said:

The fundamental problem is deceptively simple. You can't balance support and damage as though they are equivalent when they aren't, and that's what they have tried to do with staff. All weapons and attunements need to deal at least decent damage on their own, period. Utility & support bolster damage, they don't replace it.

Water having about 1/5 the damage output of fire is absurd nonsense that's made even worse when you realize that damage and healing don't use the same stats so it's impossible to be great at both anyway.

This.  Yes.  Elementalist is still being punished for "versatility" in an era of the game dominated by hybrid DPS supports who can do much more.

[zeyeti.8347]

On 11/5/2023 at 11:34 AM, scerevisiae.1972 said:

all fair points. the unique thing about ele is the amount of AOE it packs, but yeah not useful on a lot of encounters where you just need to tank'n'spank the boss. the utility on the weap is also decently high as well FWIW, 2x water fields (blasted for heals by dps players), 2x fire fields (blasted for might, additional burning dps), lightning field (additional cc & vuln), ice field/frost aura (10% reduced dmg). it's not nothing.   

The only value is frost aura (-10% strike damage taken) shared from water 4 , the rest as you depict it has n o value : water field blast heal if you play non healer is laughable healing , might with blast on firefield vs a herald or any other support who hurls might like no tomorrow , the cc on your staff air 5 is only if target go trough the line and depends on allys comboing inside and  vulénrability is covered by additions of players.

[scerevisiae.1972]

2 hours ago, zeyeti.8347 said:

The only value is frost aura (-10% strike damage taken) shared from water 4 , the rest as you depict it has n o value : water field blast heal if you play non healer is laughable healing , might with blast on firefield vs a herald or any other support who hurls might like no tomorrow , the cc on your staff air 5 is only if target go trough the line and depends on allys comboing inside and  vulénrability is covered by additions of players.

Blasting a water field with 0 heal power is a 5-player 1320HP heal with no ICD.

Even in berserker gear, Satff 3 is a 2.7K AOE heal + 4sec water field, staff 5 is a huge condi clear over time in a large radius with 420HP/sec healing and a 6sec water field.

Also I don't know if you're new to the game or what but there are mutliple CCs on staff:

air 3 = 150 definance dmg
earth 5 = 100 defiance
fire 3 = 100 defiance
water 4 = 66 defiance plus huge additional CC potential from combos
air 2 = 60 defiance

plus the potential for huge CC via leap finishers through air 5 lightning field.

Staff is a hybrid weapon, with more utility than any other weapon in the game, it's not reasonable for it to outDPS other weapons that don't have the same level of utility.

If you're judging the value of a weapon purely by the highest number you see in arcdps you are playing the game wrong. IMO the issue here is not with staff it's that Anet's current PVE encounter design philosophy doesn't emphasise the value of utility enough, it's 95% tank'n'spank.

Edited November 11, 2023 by scerevisiae.1972

[ZephidelGRS.9520]

Realistically you can only use 1-2 of those at most. Most CC phases only last ~5s at maximum, while the cooldown between Attunement switching is ~2s. 

[Emberheart.8426]

4 hours ago, ZephidelGRS.9520 said:

Realistically you can only use 1-2 of those at most. Most CC phases only last ~5s at maximum, while the cooldown between Attunement switching is ~2s. 

Most staff cc doesn't even work on bosses at all since many of them are stationary during cc phases. It's a really outdated weapon.

[DungeonMaster.3012]

On 11/3/2023 at 7:18 PM, peperoncino.2516 said:

going by that logic, ele main has to be hired for any meaningful changes to happen... 

You are such a clown.

[zeyeti.8347]

On 11/11/2023 at 1:51 AM, scerevisiae.1972 said:

Staff is a hybrid weapon, with more utility than any other weapon in the game, it's not reasonable for it to outDPS other weapons that don't have the same level of utility.

There you are screaming out loudly the elementalist most obvious weakness , he excells in nothing , he is hybrid everywhere and therefore is amost never picked up for endgame content.

Ele pay highly the price of being versatile , because obviously : earth = tanky / water = heal / fire = aoe strike condi/ air = strike direct damage. So in order for the ele to not be broken he must be "meh" in all that stuff to not be a dps healer condi together , and as is showed in all snowcrow , hardstuck etc build , there is none (except soulbeast) hybrid condi/healer/damage build. Ofc you can make your own , if you like healing like a noodle and dealing damage like a dead weight , thats your problem , i am not from that part.

the only weapon who doesnt seemed to be hybrid that much is hammer , where every attunement can deal decent to great damage , all the other weapons of ele have that kind of "hybrid" feeling : you don't use half of your skills in a very specific role , and trust me nobody ask in lfg for a hybrid healer damage condi , the only hybrid who is asked is boon/damage and boon/heal, sadly the ele is completely overshadowed by the herald (as many other quickness provider) and the tempest heal is far behind a lot of other healer as alac heal.

You called out all staff cc , even the chill and the blind lol... (if those are considered a big cc part then my reaper is the king of cc cause he maintain chill ....) those are not accountable for cc , if someone else cover up your immobilize or blind or chill , your ccing condition will have no effect at all...

Also reminder , you have 4 attunement and all cc you called out are from the 4 attunements , wich boss allow you to cc him more than 10 sec ? yes none , ty sir !

And where the hell is staff 3 fire a cc ??? oh yes it applys blind ... woohooo so usefull against bosses with cc bar ....

And i am not new to the game , don't know sh*t about wvw and pvp , but trust me i know a hell lot about pve.

On 11/11/2023 at 1:51 AM, scerevisiae.1972 said:

If you're judging the value of a weapon purely by the highest number you see in arcdps

I judge by the role the class is doing , a dps = high numbers / a boondps = boon uptime then dps / a healer = healing + boonuptime. That's the meta since hots , are you new to the game ? i am a player who has know meteor strike doing damage ...

the fact is that most players will choose what is the most efficient in their hands , so we see barely any ele in endgame content , it's not even only staff problem , cause ele is hard to get value of , and even if you master it the reward isn't worth the risk having a low hp hp class with no survivability integrated in his rotation.

Ele is difficult for the sake of being difficult , playing it in endgame content is making a challenge more challenging , it doesnt need some damage tweekd it needs qol and the next patch is in the good way for it with the change to Empowered Empowerment , same need to be apllied to tempest and weaver , tell me another healer who give boons with 4 skills on a 4 sec cast time , tempest is maybe the class who hates the most being without quickness... you feel like it deserve to have quickness integrated for the overloads, no other class has such long cooldown except bladsworn , but at least bladesworn can self aegis everytime he is IN for charging dragon slash, tempest cannot aegis while overloading.

Edited November 24, 2023 by zeyeti.8347