Spear is AMAZING (What STAFF should’ve been)

[Jski.6180]

6 hours ago, Juniper.8197 said:

What's a viable PvE build for staff?

Not sure i image you can do something with FA tempest? But staff dps is more about what its doing in wvw as pAoE add in up there dmg out put over time far better then burst on slower skills such as we see from spear. The best pve dps build for spear needs quickness due to its slow skill. For wvw or spvp slower skills on spear makes it very pointless if they are one hit only.

[scerevisiae.1972]

17 hours ago, Bladestrom.6425 said:

Their devs are good, GW2 overall is a polished product.  The only issue is the slow release cycle for balance changes and extremely poor design choices made at times with skills  by people not applying appropriate impact analysis

> polished product
>  extremely poor design choices made at times

kind of contradicted yourself there.

 

arguably, balance and engaging choices are the #1 most important design factor in any game, and if 60%+ of the weapons designed have zero appeal in one or more of your core game modes, sorry but you fail as a gameplay/mechanics designer.

 

[draxynnic.3719]

19 hours ago, scerevisiae.1972 said:

> polished product
>  extremely poor design choices made at times

kind of contradicted yourself there.

Eh, not really a contradiction. "Polished" does not mean "perfect" - something can be polished and still have a few design flaws. There's something off with how they've been designing new weapons, including apparently forgetting lessons of the past and failing to consider how a new weapon fits into existing options for a profession, but the game as a whole still feels smooth overall.

[Panda.1967]

I’ve been enjoying spear on Weaver… despite what most people seem to think, spear actually does work quite well on Weaver… the dual skills could use some work, namely adding damage to all of them… and the attunement reset gimmick is honestly useless, spear actually works best on weaver if you DON’T full attune to a single element. Attuning Air/Fire will get your highest DPS and from there its just a matter of determining which dual skills give you the most beneficial utilities to determine what order to rotate through them with. There is honestly no real reason to ever full attune with spear as weaver.

Edited September 6 by Panda.1967

[Shaman.2034]

3 hours ago, Panda.1967 said:

I’ve been enjoying spear on Weaver… despite what most people seem to think, spear actually does work quite well on Weaver… the dual skills could use some work, namely adding damage to all of them… and the attunement reset gimmick is honestly useless, spear actually works best on weaver if you DON’T full attune to a single element. Attuning Air/Fire will get your highest DPS and from there its just a matter of determining which dual skills give you the most beneficial utilities to determine what order to rotate through them with. There is honestly no real reason to ever full attune with spear as weaver.

Well, except for the fact that dual attuning gives you a damage buff, which is basically the entire point of choosing Weaver over Tempest or Catalyst. Doing damage.

And it only lasts 8 seconds, so to maintain it, you need to dual attune at least 50% of the time you change attunements.

[Tempest.8479]

4 hours ago, Panda.1967 said:

I’ve been enjoying spear on Weaver… despite what most people seem to think, spear actually does work quite well on Weaver… the dual skills could use some work, namely adding damage to all of them… and the attunement reset gimmick is honestly useless, spear actually works best on weaver if you DON’T full attune to a single element. Attuning Air/Fire will get your highest DPS and from there its just a matter of determining which dual skills give you the most beneficial utilities to determine what order to rotate through them with. There is honestly no real reason to ever full attune with spear as weaver.

I mostly agree with this. As a Weaver main, the gameplay in PvE isn't too bad. The only Weaver-specific problem, other than the general numbers feeling somewhat low and many of the big hits being unreliable, is the dual skills being poorly implemented. My open world build relies on the extra crit chance from Superior Elements to crit cap, and it's really annoying to swap weapons and have to rethink my gear choices on what should be a near-identical setup from a power damage perspective on my traits. 

That being said, I think you're right that it's usually better on spear to just rotate without single-attuning, at least from an open world PvE perspective. Otherwise, I've found the rotation gets really wonky and the free single-attunement doesn't help when you've already cast the etching from your primary attunement while it was on the back half of your bar, or once you swap out of a single-attunement into another element.

Rotating through dual attunements would be fine if it weren't for the fact that the single-attuned 3 skills generally offer more for damage and utility. Not using Seethe is a 20% damage loss on Volcano, and there's more reliable cc and mobility on earth and water, respectively. I would love if dual skills outside of Shale Storm could compete with the base skills, seeing as how dual skills are the Weaver's class mechanic.

37 minutes ago, Shaman.2034 said:

Well, except for the fact that dual attuning gives you a damage buff, which is basically the entire point of choosing Weaver over Tempest or Catalyst. Doing damage.

And it only lasts 8 seconds, so to maintain it, you need to dual attune at least 50% of the time you change attunements.

If I'm being honest, a 7% strike damage buff might not be worth having no etchings available for a significant portion of the time the buff is active. At least as far as the new maps are concerned, I think it's much more valuable to run Woven Stride and combo it with Cleansing Water for the removal of 2 conditions every time you cast a dual skill. In practice, I think that staying up longer because you can deal with the massive boon corrupt is better than a damage buff that might not even apply to your hardest hitting skills all the time.

Edited September 6 by Tempest.8479

[Panda.1967]

1 hour ago, Shaman.2034 said:

Well, except for the fact that dual attuning gives you a damage buff, which is basically the entire point of choosing Weaver over Tempest or Catalyst. Doing damage.

And it only lasts 8 seconds, so to maintain it, you need to dual attune at least 50% of the time you change attunements.

Elements of Rage is not the only Grandmaster trait Weaver has, Woven Stride is a good alternative, sure it may not be “moar damage” but it doesn’t have to be. Having a free cleanse when you use a dual skill is extremely valuable.

Even if you do still take Elements of Rage, you can still maintain it just fine with spear. Just because spear works better if you don’t full attune, doesn’t mean you can’t still do it when you need to.

[campoDeBatalla.4736]

The ele staff should have been reworked years ago, we have only received some improvements in terms of support, but 0 in terms of damage.

The damage of the staff is terribly low in all its modes, pvp in the fog is totally unfeasible, we only use it for support and sometimes not even that, for pve it has very low damage and its damage areas (fire) are ridiculously small and of little damage, plus all casts are too slow.

It's a shame since as a main element it is one of my favorite weapons (its animations, its idle are great in the human one), I love having a mage with a staff with which to do damage and have control, but here it is impossible to do that .

I hope Arenanet takes us into account and someday, not too far away, will rework us, and I hope they will also rework more than one weapon from other classes that are not used today.

[Phoenix the One.4071]

Spear did reignite my love for my love for Elementalist... it is a simply rotayion and the 7 sec is okay, I would like 10 for etching.

 

The effects are just amazing. Just love it.

And due to the attuments you never have to wait to cast an ability.

Other professions spears feels lacking.

[Twilightmage.8309]

Spear is the most fun weapon currently for ele imo. Please give weaver actual dual attacks through, and tempests a ranged overload option please anet.

[scerevisiae.1972]

spear is amazing in PVE, just it sucks in the other 2 game modes.

 

this is the core of Anet's problem, they seem incapable of designing/balancing.

[Jeddite.8620]

On 9/4/2024 at 7:52 AM, scerevisiae.1972 said:

4 expacs and WVW eles still stuck with the original 12yo weapons. Anet are hands-down the most incompetent devs in gaming. Seriously, achieving some semblance of balance between weapons to give players some choices IS NOT THAT FREAKING HARD WTF.

sad but so true

[Jski.6180]

Quickness seems to be an required buff for the spear on ele. So only Cata can get full use out of it sadly. I guess you could get some use form quickness signal (weaver realty need self quickness.)

 

[Markus.6415]

On 9/4/2024 at 10:39 PM, Juniper.8197 said:

What's a viable PvE build for staff?

Condi staff weaver is "viable". Not close to meta, but fine dps wise.

[Zephyrus.9680]

On 8/30/2024 at 7:44 PM, Alchemxst.6097 said:

Spear is amazing. The visuals thematically really represent what an elemental caster should showcase in terms of spells. But honestly, I’d expect this display of visuals on the staff weapon. Staff is a 1200 range caster weapon. Spear is more for a spellblade.
 

while I love spear, due to the visuals, I wish staff had the same love spear got. Staff spells just boring now compared to spear.  

We play completely different games. I could care less about visuals. The skills are what matter. Spear skills are boring in terms of mechanics and all the attunements feel the same. Staff is a much more interesting and unique weapon, mechanically. 

[Junkpile.7439]

It's so annoying how they nowadays just add some gimmick so weapon skills can be totally bland and boring. Funniest part  is that gimmick is so weak that you don't even notice any impact.