Staff Buff Ideas (DPS ele/weaver)

[SlitheSlivier.1908]

The issue with using ele/weaver for DPS in wvw (large groups) is the damage vs survivability just isn't there. You die so so easily with low base hp, low armor, few cleanses, not much Stability options, etc. You can easily be out-DPS'ed by other classes that also have much more defense; the only reason to bring ele is really just because you like the idea of commanding the elements. The biggest problem that I see is staff, which as pretty much everyone agrees, is very lackluster and needs a little buff.

My thoughts below follow the logic of, sure the ele dies fast, but if you keep him alive it will be a little more worth it.

 

-My main overarching idea: Increase Staff Dual Attacks (weaver), staff #2 skills, and Water and Earth skill #5 to damage/affect either 7 or 8 people instead of 5. This will mean that each person won't take more damage individually, so it will still have the same balance in small fights without dealing crazy damage to the few people in the fight, but for larger fights you will simply be able to hit more people. The idea of Staff was to be able to affect large areas from a large distance at the cost of not really being able to focus well on individual players. Currently Staff is limited to the default 5 for most skills which is no more than any other class's AoE, has 1200 range which is no more than many other classes, does less damage, has little support, etc. Increasing the number of enemies that it can will increase the total potential damage.

 

Specific Skills:

-Pyroclastic Blast: Make the insanely slow moving projectile move twice as fast. It still won't be all that fast but will make the skill a bit more useable and you may actually hit enemies with it before they already move or die (or you die).

-Lahar: Allow it to give allies within its area to gain stability for 2 seconds each pulse (max 7-8). You can then use it for your party or for damage, and allows you to have 1 skill that actually contributes to your squad in a somewhat meaningful way other than damage.

 

-Pressure Blast*: Increase the damage by 25%. Reduce Cast Time to 0.75 sec. Then you can actually use it a bit for offense. OR significantly increase the healing.

-Monsoon* Increase damage by 6x (damage coefficient of 1.25-1.75) OR signficantly increase the healing. This skill is pretty useless imho and is just significantly worse than all the other duals by a long shot.

*One of these should have much more healing, the other should do more damage.

 

-Eruption: Make the delay 1.5-2sec instead of 3 sec. Reduce Cast time to 1/2 sec. I'd like to see a 5-10% damage increase too. Currently there is almost a 5 sec delay from when you start casting this to when the skill goes off, meaning your enemies are often either already dead or have moved away.

-Blinding Surge: Increase damage coefficient back to 1.15, or at least to 1.05. Increase Radius to 300. It's a staff skill after-all.

-Meteor Shower: Cap the Damage minimum to damage coefficient of 0.6. Increase number of meteors by 25% to make it more consistent to hit your enemies (so for every 4 meteors that fall in that giant circle, 1 more will fall). Alternately, tho I like these less, instead of increasing the number of meteors, either Increase damage coefficient to 1.4 OR decrease the damage reduction per hit to 5%.

-Flameblast: Make it a Blast finisher and make it so if no enemy is targetted it blasts around you, much like other skills.

-Ice Spike: Make the spike fall 33% faster.

 

ADDITIONAL:

Static Field (Air #5)

Since staff is really useless in small fights, and in larger fights everyone has Stability for the key moments that Static field is useful, I'd like to see this skill switched to something more in line with Meteor Shower, (Thunderstorm?) but faster and easier to cast with a large area just like meteor shower. Instead of having a few hard-hitting blasts, it would have many small hits that each can only hit 1 person in a 180 radius. Its sum would be a bit less damage than meteor shower to make up for the faster cast time. The net result would be a faster, much much more consistent meteor shower that does a bit less damage.

[Helicity.3416]

I think the primary thing would be to make staff skills *less slow*, I can't imagine anyone else wants these 2012-never-touched-again cast speeds...

[solemn.9608]

I would be very happy to see Staff get some buffs,

that being said, I'm just going to leave this here...

 

Staff is not useless in small-scale fights. Idk if it's still done often (I don't PvP often) but you could full glass staff weaver your way into Plat if you knew how. Similarly, in small-scale WvW, use LF and BR to escape/bait the enemy and cast aoes on yourself to discourage them attacking you, then go back to supporting your group with insanely high dmg skills.

[Dadnir.5038]

> @"SlitheSlivier.1908" said:

> The issue with using ele/weaver for DPS in wvw (large groups) is the damage vs survivability just isn't there. You die so so easily with low base hp, low armor, few cleanses, not much Stability options, etc. You can easily be out-DPS'ed by other classes that also have much more defense; the only reason to bring ele is really just because you like the idea of commanding the elements. The biggest problem that I see is staff, which as pretty much everyone agrees, is very lackluster and needs a little buff.

 

I honnestly don't agree with this introduction.

 

> My thoughts below follow the logic of, sure the ele dies fast, but if you keep him alive it will be a little more worth it.

>

> -My main overarching idea: Increase Staff Dual Attacks (weaver), staff #2 skills, and Water and Earth skill #5 to damage/affect either 7 or 8 people instead of 5. This will mean that each person won't take more damage individually, so it will still have the same balance in small fights without dealing crazy damage to the few people in the fight, but for larger fights you will simply be able to hit more people. The idea of Staff was to be able to affect large areas from a large distance at the cost of not really being able to focus well on individual players. Currently Staff is limited to the default 5 for most skills which is no more than any other class's AoE, has 1200 range which is no more than many other classes, does less damage, has little support, etc. Increasing the number of enemies that it can will increase the total potential damage.

>

> Specific Skills:

> -Pyroclastic Blast: Make the insanely slow moving projectile move twice as fast. It still won't be all that fast but will make the skill a bit more useable and you may actually hit enemies with it before they already move or die (or you die).

> -Lahar: Allow it to give allies within its area to gain stability for 2 seconds each pulse (max 7-8). You can then use it for your party or for damage, and allows you to have 1 skill that actually contributes to your squad in a somewhat meaningful way other than damage.

>

> -Pressure Blast*: Increase the damage by 25%. Reduce Cast Time to 0.75 sec. Then you can actually use it a bit for offense. OR significantly increase the healing.

> -Monsoon* Increase damage by 6x (damage coefficient of 1.25-1.75) OR signficantly increase the healing. This skill is pretty useless imho and is just significantly worse than all the other duals by a long shot.

 

If the issue is really what you stated in you introduction, all of this wouldn't solve the issue as well as a simple 20% CD reduction on all staff dual attack (because a CD reduction let you use them more often, effectively increasing the dps tied to these dual attacks and increase your sustain through _elemental refreshment_ which is a minor trait granting barrier on dual skill use).

 

Personnally, I'm still hoping that one day the cd reduction on attunment traits will end up being applied one way or another onto the dual skills.

 

> -Eruption: Make the delay 1.5-2sec instead of 3 sec. Reduce Cast time to 1/2 sec. I'd like to see a 5-10% damage increase too. Currently there is almost a 5 sec delay from when you start casting this to when the skill goes off, meaning your enemies are often either already dead or have moved away.

 

You're exagerating here.

 

> -Blinding Surge: Increase damage coefficient back to 1.15, or at least to 1.05. Increase Radius to 300. It's a staff skill after-all.

 

I'd say that it need more a cast time reduction than an increase in damage. 1 second cast time for this skill is way to long.

 

> -Meteor Shower: Cap the Damage minimum to damage coefficient of 0.6. Increase number of meteors by 25% to make it more consistent to hit your enemies (so for every 4 meteors that fall in that giant circle, 1 more will fall). Alternately, tho I like these less, instead of increasing the number of meteors, either Increase damage coefficient to 1.4 OR decrease the damage reduction per hit to 5%.

 

More impacts will generate just as much issues than you think it will correct, remember that in competitive modes you're more likely to encounter this bothersome boon called _retaliation_.

 

> -Flameblast: Make it a Blast finisher and make it so if no enemy is targetted it blasts around you, much like other skills.

 

How about no?

 

> -Ice Spike: Make the spike fall 33% faster.

 

Unnecessary.

 

>

> ADDITIONAL:

> Static Field (Air #5)

> Since staff is really useless in small fights, and in larger fights everyone has Stability for the key moments that Static field is useful, I'd like to see this skill switched to something more in line with Meteor Shower, (Thunderstorm?) but faster and easier to cast with a large area just like meteor shower. Instead of having a few hard-hitting blasts, it would have many small hits that each can only hit 1 person in a 180 radius. Its sum would be a bit less damage than meteor shower to make up for the faster cast time. The net result would be a faster, much much more consistent meteor shower that does a bit less damage.

 

The skill is fine. If it doesn't stun due to stability, at least it remove some stacks of stability. Which basically mean that with enough elementalist using this skill you can end up stunning those foes. If you want a thunderstorm attack you always have the glyph.

[Arcaneus.6931]

I don't know man, personally, I think it would be cool if they swapped some of the water abilities with scepter mainly the no 1. Water Blast with Ice Shards and no 5 Healing rain with Shatterstone. I would rather see staff have more DPS options than have a healing spec because IMO healing spec is useless specially if I swap it by accident I do 0 damage with ability 1 and for ability 5 Healing Rain isn't worth being a long range skill.

 

I also think they should do the same with air attunement too. Swap no 1 Chain Lighting with scepters Lighting Arc(Maybe reduce duration for staff) and No 4 Windborne Speed with Blinding Flash/ or Focus 4 Swirling Winds . Reason because staffs air ability 1 is too slow and useless at long range and I feel that Windborne doesn't benefit anyone at long range as well and should be a scepter skill.

 

Overall what I am trying to get at is that I want Staff to be more like the classic "Mage" style were people can choose what elements are their primary by equipping their respective trait lines, because currently I am forced to take fire and play as a pyromancer because that's were my damage comes from as a staff main. I would rather see attunements getting buffed when I have that trait equipped so you can use as your primary or secondary at least and not because I have to for better damage or certain boost.

 

I get that some people may not like this idea and like the healing spec but I would rather it moved to scepter because I find them useless for long range anyways. IMO healing/condi cleanse should be for short range.

 

I just want to see more people play as Water, Air and Earth mages specially In PVP/WvW it would be pretty cool to encounter someone with opposite elements.

 

 

[montecristo.1324]

I think you are missing the point. The strenght of ele was and is the field play. If you remove the fields from his staff you are killing the class. What ele bring to a zerg is that, one dps that can quickly switch to water drop down staff 5 wich is op and go back to dps with fire. Or goes to earth and cc enemies.

Every attunment has is strenghts, it's not only dps or only heal. this is the design of ele, like it or not, it's also his strenght.

 

[Arcaneus.6931]

> @"montecristo.1324" said:

> I think you are missing the point. The strenght of ele was and is the field play. If you remove the fields from his staff you are killing the class. What ele bring to a zerg is that, one dps that can quickly switch to water drop down staff 5 wich is op and go back to dps with fire. Or goes to earth and cc enemies.

> Every attunment has is strenghts, it's not only dps or only heal. this is the design of ele, like it or not, it's also his strenght.

>

 

Can you explain what the point of Water 1 ability is for staff? How would this help me in combat? I get what you are saying but currently Its, meh. I would like it to have more diversity with the elements trait you equip making that attunement more useful, hence I can have the attunements of my choosing as my primary or secondary at least. IMO the healing skills on staff are useless at long range, I would rather they be on scepter and staff get more chill and vulnra or defensive abilities or even mobility to help us keep at a distance.

 

I want to do damage with Air/Water and Earth if I choose too and not use it as simple tool to cycle back to fire again as it makes the number 1 abilities on all attunements practically worthless if I am cycling back to default fire for better damage. I feel like this class has potential for more diversity with combat.

 

You have to understand not everyone enjoys playing a Pyromancer or Melee as a cloth class with 0 mobility and abilities that can easily get canceled. If I wanted a healer/support or melee class I would have picked Guardian or Warrior.

[montecristo.1324]

> @"Arcaneus.6931" said:

> > @"montecristo.1324" said:

> > I think you are missing the point. The strenght of ele was and is the field play. If you remove the fields from his staff you are killing the class. What ele bring to a zerg is that, one dps that can quickly switch to water drop down staff 5 wich is op and go back to dps with fire. Or goes to earth and cc enemies.

> > Every attunment has is strenghts, it's not only dps or only heal. this is the design of ele, like it or not, it's also his strenght.

> >

>

> Can you explain what the point of Water 1 ability is for staff? How would this help me in combat? I get what you are saying but currently Its, meh. I would like it to have more diversity with the elements trait you equip making that attunement more useful, hence I can have the attunements of my choosing as my primary or secondary at least. IMO the healing skills on staff are useless at long range, I would rather they be on scepter and staff get more chill and vulnra or defensive abilities or even mobility to help us keep at a distance.

>

> I want to do damage with Air/Water and Earth if I choose too and not use it as simple tool to cycle back to fire again as it makes the number 1 abilities on all attunements practically worthless if I am cycling back to default fire for better damage. I feel like this class has potential for more diversity with combat.

>

> You have to understand not everyone enjoys playing a Pyromancer or Melee as a cloth class with 0 mobility and abilities that can easily get canceled. If I wanted a healer/support or melee class I would have picked Guardian or Warrior.

 

First of all we are talking about elementalist not pyromancer. Ele is supposed to cycle through elements and camping one element is out of discussion in every competitive scenario. Second of all there are plenty of good water traits and skills to use if you prefer to play around it. There is a entire trait designed on DPS on enemies with vulnerability and water attunement. Plus you have also conjure frostbow which have some good DPS.

 

I don't know how long do you play else, I'm playing it since the release and I feel that the point of the class is the cycling on elements, it is his strength and used correctly every attunement is really strong. There are one shot builds based on earth, and competitive builds based on water.

 

Of course for the nature of this class when you play some hybrid build it shines, the old cele else, or the more modern auromancer, but as you said, if you want to play only with one attunement then you can play another class because you are not using the full strength of the class

[Arcaneus.6931]

> @"montecristo.1324" said:

> First of all we are talking about elementalist not pyromancer. Ele is supposed to cycle through elements and camping one element is out of discussion in every competitive scenario. Second of all there are plenty of good water traits and skills to use if you prefer to play around it. There is a entire trait designed on DPS on enemies with vulnerability and water attunement. Plus you have also conjure frostbow which have some good DPS.

>

> I don't know how long do you play else, I'm playing it since the release and I feel that the point of the class is the cycling on elements, it is his strength and used correctly every attunement is really strong. There are one shot builds based on earth, and competitive builds based on water.

>

> Of course for the nature of this class when you play some hybrid build it shines, the old cele else, or the more modern auromancer, but as you said, if you want to play only with one attunement then you can play another class because you are not using the full strength of the class

 

What BS give me a break dude. I Literally played PvP with only fire attunement and managed to win majority of the matches with the right team this also the same for me in WvW. The only abilities that I often find useful for staff are Static Field and Unsteady Ground the rest are useless and I don't even use those outside of PVP/ WvW because I can just Fireball almost everything to death. The only reason I end up using other abilities/attunements In PVE is because of Champions or I am bored of spamming the Fireball over and over again.

 

I think the healing for staff is rubbish even with the water trait equipped, IMO its a waste of space to give players ability to heal at long range as it doesn't benefit anyone since majority of the players tend to run close to the enemy so you are essentially using heals at scepter/dagger range on staff. I run ELE not Tempest because I don't want to loose additional bonus damage for a gimmick Elite.

 

I think the trident abilities are way better than staff and IMO I think some of the abilities should be similar to it mainly the Water abilities. The "cycling on elements" gimmicks your on about is just for RP if ask me nothing more, its useless in majority of the PVE content but not as much in PVP/WvW sure I can agree with you there.

 

Also stop telling me I should play another class. I enjoy the class and I am using it to its full potential. Its just a crappy thing to say to someone who is probably more passionate about the class than you and wants to see it in a better light.

 

 

[Stand The Wall.6987]

i would like to see autos do more damage, fire 3 changed, fire 4 two ammo (not my idea), water 4+5 reduced cd, air 2+3 reduced cd, earth 1 aoe (decrease weakness), earth 5 faster. earth 2 and water 2 detonate faster and both take 1/2 sec cast.

[steki.1478]

> @"Arcaneus.6931" said:

> > @"montecristo.1324" said:

> > First of all we are talking about elementalist not pyromancer. Ele is supposed to cycle through elements and camping one element is out of discussion in every competitive scenario. Second of all there are plenty of good water traits and skills to use if you prefer to play around it. There is a entire trait designed on DPS on enemies with vulnerability and water attunement. Plus you have also conjure frostbow which have some good DPS.

> >

> > I don't know how long do you play else, I'm playing it since the release and I feel that the point of the class is the cycling on elements, it is his strength and used correctly every attunement is really strong. There are one shot builds based on earth, and competitive builds based on water.

> >

> > Of course for the nature of this class when you play some hybrid build it shines, the old cele else, or the more modern auromancer, but as you said, if you want to play only with one attunement then you can play another class because you are not using the full strength of the class

>

> What BS give me a break dude. I Literally played PvP with only fire attunement and managed to win majority of the matches with the right team this also the same for me in WvW. The only abilities that I often find useful for staff are Static Field and Unsteady Ground the rest are useless and I don't even use those outside of PVP/ WvW because I can just Fireball almost everything to death. The only reason I end up using other abilities/attunements In PVE is because of Champions or I am bored of spamming the Fireball over and over again.

>

> I think the healing for staff is rubbish even with the water trait equipped, IMO its a waste of space to give players ability to heal at long range as it doesn't benefit anyone since majority of the players tend to run close to the enemy so you are essentially using heals at scepter/dagger range on staff. I run ELE not Tempest because I don't want to loose additional bonus damage for a gimmick Elite.

>

> I think the trident abilities are way better than staff and IMO I think some of the abilities should be similar to it mainly the Water abilities. The "cycling on elements" gimmicks your on about is just for RP if ask me nothing more, its useless in majority of the PVE content but not as much in PVP/WvW sure I can agree with you there.

>

> Also stop telling me I should play another class. I enjoy the class and I am using it to its full potential. Its just a crappy thing to say to someone who is probably more passionate about the class than you and wants to see it in a better light.

>

>

 

You're not using its full potential if you're not using elite specs, swap weapons based on situations and you only camp one attunement.

 

Literally contradicting yourself multiple times, yet you call yourself experienced and passionate. The whole point of gw2 build system is to adapt to every situation by using all available resources, yet you want one weapon to fill every single purpose that a class can achieve, while not even using half of its potential.

[Arcaneus.6931]

> @"steki.1478" said:

>

> You're not using its full potential if you're not using elite specs, swap weapons based on situations and you only camp one attunement.

>

> Literally contradicting yourself multiple times, yet you call yourself experienced and passionate. The whole point of gw2 build system is to adapt to every situation by using all available resources, yet you want one weapon to fill every single purpose that a class can achieve, while not even using half of its potential.

 

I never called myself experienced or mentioned I was only camping one attunement. Where did you get that from? I used Fire Attunement in PvP to prove my point that you don't necessarily need to do full attunement swaps.

 

I am just mentioning how I find the majority of the abilities for staff useless because fire is the go to for damage so I never had to use ability 1 or 2 on different attunements just because fire has better damage. By the time I use 3,4,5 other attunements are off cooldown so I swap.

 

I can get around just fine in PvP and PvE.

 

[steki.1478]

> @"Arcaneus.6931" said:

> > @"steki.1478" said:

> >

> > You're not using its full potential if you're not using elite specs, swap weapons based on situations and you only camp one attunement.

> >

> > Literally contradicting yourself multiple times, yet you call yourself experienced and passionate. The whole point of gw2 build system is to adapt to every situation by using all available resources, yet you want one weapon to fill every single purpose that a class can achieve, while not even using half of its potential.

>

> I never called myself experienced or mentioned I was only camping one attunement. Where did you get that from? I used Fire Attunement in PvP to prove my point that you don't necessarily need to do full attunement swaps.

>

> I am just mentioning how I find the majority of the abilities for staff useless because fire is the go to for damage so I never had to use ability 1 or 2 on different attunements just because fire has better damage. By the time I use 3,4,5 other attunements are off cooldown so I swap.

>

> I can get around just fine in PvP and PvE.

>

 

Why is damage the only argument in your posts? Not everything is about damage. If you find skills useless, take weapons that do more damage, simple. If you played anything in a more competitive environment, where people don't just afk in your aoes, you'd notice that mobility, cc and kiting potential matters just as much.

 

Not every weapon needs to be godlike in every single situation.