Why Does the staff seam so underpowered ?

[Merrex.5384]

I have tried all of the weapons and maybe I am just not using it like I should but the staff just seams so Under-powered compared to the other weapons.

[Paradoxoglanis.1904]

Staff is very slow and clunky to use. It doesnt have great dps against small hitboxes and its projectiles are slow and often miss moving targets.

[Sunshine.5014]

Staff needs a huge cast/animation time reduction. Right now it feels very clunky to use. The majority of the spells, including auto attack, should be 1/2s cast time max.

[The Boz.2038]

It was really realy good back in 2012, so they nerfed it.

Mind you, it was never as good as any elite spec weapons now. Except maybe druid staff.

[Knuckle Joe.7408]

cause it is, it has been nerfed to oblivion now cause people QQ'ed about ele doing massive damage (which is just logical seeing we're the most fragile class), now it's kitten.

[Knuckle Joe.7408]

40 minutes ago, The Boz.2038 said:

It was really realy good back in 2012, so they nerfed it.

Mind you, it was never as good as any elite spec weapons now. Except maybe druid staff.

never as good? you must be talking about PvP cause in PvE old school ele staff was the king of kings, even on small hitboxes

Edited July 8, 2021 by Knuckle Joe.7408

[anbujackson.9564]

Staff fire attunement skills were nerfed multiple times, air skills are... questionable just like earth.

 

The only good remaining skills are on water for healing, but you loose too many other useful options from other weapons on the attunements (warhorn as tempest is just so much better). So yeah, its bad. Not as bad as staff on necro though.

[Jski.6180]

It was balanced with out any fine tuning for game types so your staff is balanced for and only for mobs that stand still so the moment any things moves your staff is hard counter.

[AzuritaBlues.3206]

the problem is the cast times, projectile speed and animation lock, really. Staff has HUGE utility. Air and Earth have great AOE CC skills which are much fun to use with Lightning Rod, water has the best healing potential of all ele's weapons, the overall damage of staff is okayish, the problem is how fast you can get that damage out and most of it is really easy to avoid. The animation locks/roots make stability a necessity to cast those skills safely and our only Core source of stab is Armor of Earth... Also combo fields are not as relevant as they used to be.

 

They need to make staff faster or make it hit HARD to justify the slow use skills. 

 

Also, weaver dual skills feels even slower and more difficult to land than core's staff. FIRE/EARTH and FIRE/AIR being the biggest offenders here, but also EARTH/AIR. So clunky...

[AzuritaBlues.3206]

...

Edited July 8, 2021 by talesbfftt.4596
Accidental double post

[Zeesh.7286]

Staff ele is useless in every game mode except open world zerging in wvw/defending keeps/towers where it's top damage if used properly. 

[Keitaro Dragonheart.9047]

On 7/8/2021 at 3:47 AM, Knuckle Joe.7408 said:

cause it is, it has been nerfed to oblivion now cause people QQ'ed about ele doing massive damage (which is just logical seeing we're the most fragile class), now it's kitten.

This pretty much summarizes the entire "Professions" forum since 2012, tbh. "Wah, X thing killed me, OP, nerf", followed by Anet smiter's booning said thing and then never fixing it. Unless you're a Guardian or a Necromancer, it seems.

 

Edit: Should mention here, Staff was "over performing" in WvW, way back before they made balance changes, per game mode. So they blanket nerfed staff across all game modes and then left it in the trash can.

Edited July 9, 2021 by Keitaro Dragonheart.9047

[The Boz.2038]

Hehehehe. Smiter's Booning. Hehe.

[Orack.9756]

On 7/8/2021 at 4:54 AM, Sunshine.5014 said:

Staff needs a huge cast/animation time reduction. Right now it feels very clunky to use. The majority of the spells, including auto attack, should be 1/2s cast time max.

So much this.

 

I keep using staff on my weaver for solo/open world cuz I like having a staff, simple. It does the job but that all.

Very slow, need many aoe to kill 1 trash, even auto-atk are so slow and the dmg/projectile so low that it just not worth the cast..

I'm here, since years, still hoping one day a dev pick and ele, pick a staff and realize how horrible this weapon is right now.

When a mage do better with dagger and sword than scepter or staff, yikkkk..

 

And don't make me start on the stupid CD on "utility" skills...

[TheDarkness.6947]

4 hours ago, Orack.9756 said:

When a mage do better with dagger and sword than scepter or staff, yikkkk..

 

My current working theory is that it is no longer modeled after a mage, but after a malfunctioning, high-tech toaster.  It has a confusingly large number of buttons relative to the number of tasks it’s actually able to perform.  Pressing some of them seems to have no noticeable effect whatsoever.  Sometimes it emits showers of sparks.  Occasionally it catches fire and poses a modest threat - mostly to itself provided someone notices it happening.

[AliamRationem.5172]

That's rude and unnecessary.  I'm with you if you feel that staff is in a poor state and should be made a priority.  But to call the people who came up with a concept as brilliant as elementalist/weaver in the first place "talentless" is offensive.

 

I refer you to my GW2 slogan:

 

"Inconsistently brilliant and perpetually mismanaged!"

 

Do note the brilliance!  I assure you it is there and it's why so many of us continue to play this game, despite the flaws.  FWIW, I hope they do something brilliant with staff and make elementalist more rewarding to play.

[TheDarkness.6947]

It seems like anet wants to apply balance by making melee attacks high DPS and decrease DPS as weapon range increases.  For professions that have a weapon swap, that seems OK.  Personally I haven’t run into many situations where you can really stay out of melee for an entire fight, though. And since ele doesn’t have a weapon swap (let’s just make the assumption that conjures are not a good option at this juncture), you ultimately get stuck with a clunky, low damage weapon at some point during the fight, and you’re probably gonna have a bad time.

 

I wonder if they could do something like make some of the staff attacks short range and high damage, and others ranged with lower damage and/or CCs.  Make it a dual purpose weapon.  I think that could be kind of cool.

[AliamRationem.5172]

2 hours ago, TheDarkness.6947 said:

It seems like anet wants to apply balance by making melee attacks high DPS and decrease DPS as weapon range increases.  For professions that have a weapon swap, that seems OK.  Personally I haven’t run into many situations where you can really stay out of melee for an entire fight, though. And since ele doesn’t have a weapon swap (let’s just make the assumption that conjures are not a good option at this juncture), you ultimately get stuck with a clunky, low damage weapon at some point during the fight, and you’re probably gonna have a bad time.

 

I wonder if they could do something like make some of the staff attacks short range and high damage, and others ranged with lower damage and/or CCs.  Make it a dual purpose weapon.  I think that could be kind of cool.

 

Since you mention it, a rework of conjures to properly fill the gaps could help.  But staff needs some love regardless, I think.

[TheDarkness.6947]

26 minutes ago, AliamRationem.5172 said:

 

Since you mention it, a rework of conjures to properly fill the gaps could help.  But staff needs some love regardless, I think.

 

Agreed, they both need love.

[Axl.8924]

On 7/8/2021 at 3:27 AM, Merrex.5384 said:

I have tried all of the weapons and maybe I am just not using it like I should but the staff just seams so Under-powered compared to the other weapons.

Slow dps clunky and has pretty bad mobility compared to D/WH

D/WH has close range but convergence does mroe dmg you got cyclone for swiftness and tons of dmg.

[ASP.8093]

Staff has a niche and that niche is hitting a whole blob of enemies who have control abilities and defenses that prevent you from just jumping onto them in melee (so there's big value in being able to put down ranged AOEs), who also don't necessarily just want to jump on *you* in melee (so your **pulsing** AOEs actually do something).

 

So, uhh, that's only WvW zerg fights.

 

And ime you're pretty reliant on Weaver to add extra two-element abilities to give you more to do than just camp Fire attunement for the DPS.

 

It's kinda sad that how bad staff ele is in any other circumstances, though, like WvW small-scale or all of PvE. (Can't even use pulsing AoEs for area denial on SPvP nodes because you're absolute trash at that compared to, say, Dragon Hunter.)

Edited July 17, 2021 by ASP.8093

[lLobo.7960]

I think staff could use some more condi dmg, making it more viable as a hybrid (as all other Ele weapons) and even as power, giving it a bit more dmg via the condi related traits (more dmg to burning, bleeding, etc).

 

• Fire auto should apply burning. Enough to keep 1 burning stack on autoattack without condi duration bonuses.
• Lava font should burn on each tick, and the last tick should be a bigger radius explosion.
• Flame burst should copy burn from your target to up to 10 nearby foes (like a fire epi)
• Meteor Shower... Yes burn on every hit, or make it a huge fire field pulsing burns and having the meteors falling as it is.
• Air auto needs to be quicker. Quicker to cast, quicker to travel, quicker to bounce. Never seen lightening so slow.
• Lightning Surges blind is a bit useless considering how slow it is to cast. Make it apply a big stack of vulnerability instead
• Gust is too slow... it misses people running perpendicular to you at mid range.
• Windbourne Speed needs a lower CD. You need 100% boon duration to have perma swiftness with it... shouldnt take this much
• Static field is great, but should at least stun people when its cast. 
• Earth auto should apply bleeds. Weakness is very nice, but should be in another skill.
• Unsteady ground should apply cripple/weakness  to people passing over it.
• Shock wave is just so slow it never seems to hit anything. Maybe make the wave immob and leave a field on its wake that still cripples/bleed. (this way, all staff skills 5 would be a field)

[Merrex.5384]

I guess there  is always hope they might make it better as Mesmer recently got a staff re-work done to make it better.

[Eddbopkins.2630]

Imo, Mostly becuase its a slow clunky weapon.all the autos are horrible slow interms of cast speed and travel speed. You would think a bolt of lighting from staff 3 auto be fast af but nah. I honeatly like staff as a caster weapon, whats more iconic then a wizard with a staff, but gw2 does ele/wizard a raw crappy deal 

Edited July 24, 2021 by Eddbopkins.2630