I like the staff rework

[Hicci.8761]

Now we just wait for shield rework.

[mraulsx.8057]

@Darknicrofia.2604 said:lol no, it hits for like 3k crits, the 2nd and 3rd auto attack chain also moves progressively slower.

3k AA crits? Is that bad?

[mraulsx.8057]

@"Hicci.8761" said:Now we just wait for shield rework.

What's wrong with shield? Maybe shield 4 could be a "real" block... It does good dmg + provides aegis

[Darknicrofia.2604]

@mraulsx.8057 said:

@Darknicrofia.2604 said:lol no, it hits for like 3k crits, the 2nd and 3rd auto attack chain also moves progressively slower.

3k AA crits? Is that bad?

only the final hit of the chain can crit for that, and it moves at the speed of old orb of light, and considering you're asking if its viable to drop hammer for it, the answer is no, its not.

[Nero.7369]

Sadly the auto attacks are projectiles, but feels better then the melee wave. Also some supportive additions would have been nice. Like move the healing in mace aachain to staff and give the mace an aegis or protection

Holy Strike is just awesome. 4 pulses in like 1 sec is good. Way better to hit allies. Good job :) also that it is a blast finisher is great :)

Empower changes are also fine.

Decent changes to the line of warding next please. Like some damage to opponents and giving protection to allies that pass through it.

[Opopanax.1803]

Blast finisher is great for healing via blasting water fields or other fields for that matter. A very good addition for group play healing.

[otto.5684]

I have used in 3-4 sPvP games as damage weapon using core retaliation and it works. Too early to tell, but I think we have a new build in sPvP using staff/gs with radiance/valor/honor.

[Sungak Alkandenes.1369]

So a ~1200 HealPow Guard can potentially give a 2000 heal with Holy Strike. And that is before adding stuff like Force of Will, which should help too. On a 6.5 second cooldown when traited. Oh the other hand, doing that with a Clerics build gives you almost no damage from the autoattack; my damage oriented Guard (Zerk/Soldier/Marauder) had some decent damage numbers but so-so healing.

Possible interesting niche for stat sets like Zealot. That one in particular had been an alternate back in the old days, so perhaps it can be revived well here. I've no interest in doing it (I have separate Guards for the two roles I like with it), but I bring it up in case someone else has an interest in it. Or perhaps recommend a different stat set - the mostly Cleric guard is designed for Map Meta and WvW survival, but preferably 'on the cheap' too. ;-)

As for the autoattack, its a decent fix for their core complaint of it being a 'tagging' weapon. You can still pull that off, but it now requires much more skill.

[Unknown.3976]

Pretty rework but staff's viability remains questionable. I don't see it having a place in WvW, support FB have get into the thick of battle and staff is just too unwieldy for a front-liner.

As a matter of fact, some of the guards' buff are, umm, questionable? Too little to have any impact on the current meta. 10% buff to trueshot in PvE? 20% buff to deadly blow in PvE? What's that supposed to accomplish?

[Darknicrofia.2604]

Staff has been meta for WvW for basically ever and will remain meta.

And the hammer skill is called Might Blow...

Do you even play guard?

[Unknown.3976]

@Darknicrofia.2604 said:Staff has been meta for WvW for basically ever and will remain meta.

And the hammer skill is called Might Blow...

Do you even play guard?

Staff was meta back then becuz folks use it to tag foes in zerg fights. That was quite a long time ago. Don't see it these days.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

how to get tags in wvw without mah lootstick aa

[X T D.6458]

Rework is good, auto attack is a little weak. Still waiting on Necro staff rework, maybe in 2030

[Fashion Mage.3712]

I like the mini-rework a lot personally. So glad Wave of Farming got replaced (finally). Orb of Light low-key got replaced with a Heal Area-ish skill as well, and it references a monk skill. Very nice. uwuWould've been nice to see Empower be ground-targeted or something since literally everything else on the staff is 1200 range now, but I can live with it.

Liking the radius buff on Bow of Truth too, was kind of impossible to use before.

[Jora.5471]

I think Staff is meant to be a healer weapon not a power weapon. I've been playing Staff FB healer and its fun to use over mace.

[Riba.3271]

Regarding WvW, it is a great change. Staff autoattacks didnt have much use before as Firebrand was considered healbot and as soon as you were melee range of enemy, you weren't autoattacking anyways, rather healing or using longer range abilities of F1 tome. Now it will still be hard to use but at least the autoattacks can be used to take down siege, downs or low targets etc.

Biggest change was at staff 2 ability. Now it is much better as the old ability was slow to use and was mostly limited to using melee range. Now staff 2 can be used to even heal allies far away from tag or just to apply ranged pressure. Basically the weapon has more variety now. And most importantly, it deals damage and heals at the same time, before you had to choose between one or another and you had commit lot of time to it.

[Kam.4092]

@Threather.9354 said:Regarding WvW, it is a great change. Staff autoattacks didnt have much use before as Firebrand was considered healbot and as soon as you were melee range of enemy, you weren't autoattacking anyways, rather healing or using longer range abilities of F1 tome. Now it will still be hard to use but at least the autoattacks can be used to take down siege, downs or low targets etc.

Biggest change was at staff 2 ability. Now it is much better as the old ability was slow to use and was mostly limited to using melee range. Now staff 2 can be used to even heal allies far away from tag or just to apply ranged pressure. Basically the weapon has more variety now. And most importantly, it deals damage and heals at the same time, before you had to choose between one or another and you had commit lot of time to it.

I didn't think about these things in my reply. That's a cool way to look at the changes.

[Darknicrofia.2604]

@Unknown.3976 said:

@Darknicrofia.2604 said:Staff has been meta for WvW for basically ever and will remain meta.

And the hammer skill is called Might Blow...

Do you even play guard?

Staff was meta back then becuz folks use it to tag foes in zerg fights. That was quite a long time ago. Don't see it these days.

its literally still the meta build for FB in both WvW and sPvP.

Again, do you even play guardian?

[Unknown.3976]

@Darknicrofia.2604 said:

@Unknown.3976 said:

@Darknicrofia.2604 said:Staff has been meta for WvW for basically ever and will remain meta.

And the hammer skill is called Might Blow...

Do you even play guard?

Staff was meta back then becuz folks use it to tag foes in zerg fights. That was quite a long time ago. Don't see it these days.

its literally

still

the meta build for FB in both WvW and sPvP.

Again, do you even play guardian?

Why do u even bring up PvP ? I wasn't even commenting on that. And staff had a range nerf some time back, which greatly diminishes its' tagging potential, good luck tagging foes with a 300 range wpn. The PoF elite specs didn't help the WvW meta either; if u played WvW for the past 9 months, u ought to know that. This patch might give staff some niche ranged capabilities but it can still be swapped out for an offhand focus or shield for some added survivability. It's far from meta.

Who gets to decide the meta? U? Metabattle?

And do I even play guardian? Why should I even prove that to you? It's even not remotely useful to this discourse. No reason for me to prove myself to a forum user.

[Eekasqueak.7850]

I did a fair amount of testing in fractals and staff firebrand works great for support in them.

[Aetatis.5418]

@Hicci.8761 said:Now we just wait for shield rework.

more like mace. except the aegis on mace 3, staff does everything better now :3

[Eruaph.4039]

@Kam.4092 said:I hate the changes. Getting rid of Light Aura sucks on the 2 skill. Might Duration wasn't an issue on Empower, it needed 1-2 more Might stacks added. ...

Is this not enough now to allow a support guardian to maintain 25 stacks of might perhaps though? I believe the support Firebrand (from the metabattle site) could maintain about 20 stacks of might before, and only 25 by replacing the mace with a scepter, which of course limited your healing/aegis options. When you multiply that extra two seconds with concentration buffs it should be enough? Might need to do some testing. Though probably the biggest issue remains on that front is that the Firebrand can only give the might to 5 people? Or has that been changed as well.

[Kam.4092]

@Eruaph.4039 said:

@Kam.4092 said:I hate the changes. Getting rid of Light Aura sucks on the 2 skill. Might Duration wasn't an issue on Empower, it needed 1-2 more Might stacks added. ...

Is this not enough now to allow a support guardian to maintain 25 stacks of might perhaps though? I believe the support Firebrand (from the metabattle site) could maintain about 20 stacks of might before, and only 25 by replacing the mace with a scepter, which of course limited your healing/aegis options. When you multiply that extra two seconds with concentration buffs it should be enough? Might need to do some testing. Though probably the biggest issue remains on that front is that the Firebrand can only give the might to 5 people? Or has that been changed as well.

You never want to drop mace, and to get 25 Might rarely, you'd need to use Altruism Runes. It was a constant 22-23 stacks of Might I think. I mean maybe it'd hit a constant 25 now after the buff.

[Arcaedus.7290]

Overall LOVE the staff changes. Seeing as 3, 4, and 5 have remained the same, the core support is about the same but I think a bit better.

• Staff 1 is a ranged attack like it always should have been. Decent speed, slightly subpar dps compared to most every other weapon but that's ok considering it's 1200 range.
• Staff 2 is a large improvement imo even with light aura gone. The damage could use a buff but it's otherwise very decent.

The overall damage on staff is a bit awkward. It's almost good enough to be used in a power-focused support build but its damage doesn't match any other weapons. Kind of strange really but at the very least, core guard now has a ranged option which is great.

What could use improvement:

• Staff 4/Empower: more duration isn't really going to help. Support-focused guardians already run like 40%+ boon duration giving them 12 stacks of might for 17+ seconds. Empower could really stand to either be a mobile skill, or just have a faster cast time. It interrupts the flow of gameplay a bit too much.
• Staff 5/Line of Warding: Still a very poor skill but given the other changes, I think small changes could make LoW more fun to use. Namely, the cast time should be much lower. 1s cast is too long considering how weak of a skill it is.

[Pyrus.9753]

I'd like to see some burning on the auto attack and/or Holy strike. It doesn't need to be a condition oriented weapon just something to give firebrands marginal damage from it.I like the changes overall, but playing a condition build the damage is pretty much the same as not attacking at all. Staff is a healing weapon I assume, but it seems more oriented for power builds than condition -- It should be equally mediocre for both power and condition builds in terms of damage.