Elementalist Staff Rework Opinions

[Json.5782]

To start things off, i'm not a player with 5 million hours or someone who just want buffs to their favourite profession. This is PURELY my own opinion and i hope to not piss some of ya'll.

 

Alrighty then.

 

I feel ele staff is super clunky and useless especially in conquest (pvp) where almost no one plays it other than trolls hence this post has been created to fufill some desires of many ele players.

Core Elementalist Staff 1 (all attunements) - I believe this doesn't need a rework as it's good on its own, however imagine being able to hold staff 1 ability to perhaps cause an effect. For example, holding staff 1 in fire - burning condi , in lightning - daze condi , in water - chilled condi , in earth - bleeding effect

 

Core Elementalist Staff 2 (only lightning) - jesus i really hate this skill like a surge? really how boring. I'd change this into an AOE placeable lightning skill like - (INVOKE LIGHTNING - conjuring) please.

 

Core Elementalist Staff 3 (only fire) extremely underpowered skill. Rework this into a skill that gives might or fire aura.

 

Core Elementalist Staff 4 (only air) swiftness is nice but switching attunements to get a swiftness boon midfight is really absurd and really dumb. I'd rework this to a teleport skill that has moderate range similar to the utility tele skill but without damage. Imagine being able to create strategies with this teleport skill with your teammates in pvp.

 

Core Elementalist Staff 5 (all attunements) the one and only reason why i made this post. Meteor Shower's radius is unnecessarily large and should be decreased atleast in pvp and pve, hence allowing the ability to actually hit people. Lightning field really needs a rework as it doesnt serve a purpose when people can dodge roll easily and it not actually stun people when it should. It should be reworked into an aoe stun only no damage lightning circle like lava font hence allowing more fluidity for other skills as this will be instant cast. Healing rain on the other hand really needs a buff in healing power as it's only used for condi clearing and people who use ele as support often get depression as they do not produce enough healing to be actually called a support, the condi cleanse isnt even that great ... *facepalm*. Last but not the least shock wave, no words are needed just change this skill to multitarget and make the cast like (Monsoon - Weaver ability)

 

I could really go on with weaver skills as well but weaver skills are useful in their own ways. So no rework there.

 

OBVIOUSLY ele reworks are'nt happening any time soon but i just really want to put this out there if 1-2 years gw2 devs decides to do something about ele's combat i want to be first to give an opinion.

 

my electrical bills are really rising as i'm typing so i'll end this sooner than i thought. REWORKS ARE NEEDED PLS ANET or ele mains won't last in the game. *sigh* i love magic.

AND GIVE ELE S/S PLS <-- okay this is biased.

i <3 gw2 forevar

[Megametzler.5729]

I just want Air 3 to be just a tiny little bit more like mesmer GS 5. I literally stand insitde my enemies and it still misses. :lol:

 

Ele is kinda bad in 2on2 indeed, but on conquest it is okay. Staff would need reworks to be viable in PVP, but that might make the weapon op in other modes... I don't know I like the style of staff, but I am not seeing it happening somehow. :disappointed:

 

€: Profession forums need to be biased. :smile:

[steki.1478]

I dont see a reason why a weapon designed to fight 5/10+ targets needs to be balanced around 1v1 or 2v2 scenarios. Literally all other weapon combinations on ele excel in such combat.

 

D/f weaver with lightning rod is one of the strongest builds for small scale fights right now, in both wvw and pvp.

[supreme.3602]

Imagine if Plasma Blast actually hit someone, instead of going through people right in front of you. That would be amazing.

[steki.1478]

> @"Dahir.4158" said:

> Imagine if Plasma Blast actually hit someone, instead of going through people right in front of you. That would be amazing.

 

Since last patch I've been actually hitting people with it, but before it it felt like the skill had 5% hit rate. I also love how all aoe dual skills have their original damage which finally makes them good.

[Json.5782]

> @"steki.1478" said:

> I dont see a reason why a weapon designed to fight 5/10+ targets needs to be balanced around 1v1 or 2v2 scenarios. Literally all other weapon combinations on ele excel in such combat.

>

> D/f weaver with lightning rod is one of the strongest builds for small scale fights right now, in both wvw and pvp.

 

if you look at the reworks i mentioned for example Staff 5, i'm pretty sure i didn't change the original focus of the weapon from a "large scale weapon" to a "small scale weapon". By that i mean the weapon is still viable for both 1v1 and 1vX scenarios. The point of the my suggestion was to make staff ele/weaver in conquest more viable. Because of its low capability of hard damage hitting abilities of actually hitting someone (meteor) many people wouldn't attempt on staff ele/weaver in conquest.

Then again staff allows the capability of long ranged attacks while other weapon combi's are mostly melee induced.

 

Please correct me if i'm wrong <3 I'm open to any opinions.

[solemn.9608]

I died to a staff tempest roamer the other week. He knew exactly how to use the build and it kind of reminded me of fighting a core necro in terms of play-style. He won after I made my first serious mistake, I was a little embarrassed. Some people really know how to make staff work.

 

Btw, just want to mention that full glass staff power weaver is still amazing for zerging in WvW and will get you top dps if you do it right.

[Infusion.7149]

I'm not sure why you specify "Core elementalist staff 2/4/5" when it's the same staff for every other spec (weaver, tempest).

 

None of the staff 1 skills should be touched, especially the daze you suggested on air attunement which is just broken. If you want burning run the fire traitline , earth has a weakness on the auto already so unless the power damage is removed completely I don't see how you could add bleeding to it.

 

Air staff 2 is fine in my opinion, it does reasonable damage post nerf and hits multiple people even if they are in the same cleave range as fireball (fire staff 1). Could it be a larger radius? perhaps.

 

Fire Staff 3 is mostly filler unless you're condi spec. Even with 0 condition damage it deals ~1600 burning damage over 6 seconds.

 

Air staff 4 is fine , it also removes immobilizing conditions. If you play WvW you will use it.

 

Staff 5 needs help on air attunement (static field) only because it was nerfed in the past. Now scrapper hammer 5 has a larger radius and does damage. The radius should probably be restored.

 

Staff 5 on fire attunement (meteor shower) should not be reduced in radius, although min damage is an issue for that skill. If the radius were reduced there would be little reason to run staff in WVW.

 

Staff 5 on water attunement is mostly used for condi clear + regen, in the older times when people would coordinate in WVW the hammer warriors and hammer guardians (which are extinct basically) blasted it for heals.

 

Staff 5 on earth attunement (shockwave) has immob + cripple but is single target. So it's balanced around the single target aspect.

 

There's only two main reasons to run staff really: ranged pressure AoE with fireball / meteor shower (lava font post nerfs a while ago made it pretty lame due to damage over time) + water attunement auto along with healing rain (staff 5 on water attunement). That's why you mostly see it on support tempests (soothing mist+staff auto in water) and fire weavers in WvW (to hit far cannons , siege on inner side of walls).

 

Support tempests have used staff in the past in PVP , it's just that sword weaver is actual damage so that's why you don't see staff weavers.

 

 

 

[Json.5782]

> @"Infusion.7149" said:

> I'm not sure why you specify "Core elementalist staff 2/4/5" when it's the same staff for every other spec (weaver, tempest).

>

> None of the staff 1 skills should be touched, especially the daze you suggested on air attunement which is just broken. If you want burning run the fire traitline , earth has a weakness on the auto already so unless the power damage is removed completely I don't see how you could add bleeding to it.

>

> Air staff 2 is fine in my opinion, it does reasonable damage post nerf and hits multiple people even if they are in the same cleave range as fireball (fire staff 1). Could it be a larger radius? perhaps.

>

> Fire Staff 3 is mostly filler unless you're condi spec. Even with 0 condition damage it deals ~1600 burning damage over 6 seconds.

>

> Air staff 4 is fine , it also removes immobilizing conditions. If you play WvW you will use it.

>

> Staff 5 needs help on air attunement (static field) only because it was nerfed in the past. Now scrapper hammer 5 has a larger radius and does damage. The radius should probably be restored.

>

> Staff 5 on fire attunement (meteor shower) should not be reduced in radius, although min damage is an issue for that skill. If the radius were reduced there would be little reason to run staff in WVW.

>

> Staff 5 on water attunement is mostly used for condi clear + regen, in the older times when people would coordinate in WVW the hammer warriors and hammer guardians (which are extinct basically) blasted it for heals.

>

> Staff 5 on earth attunement (shockwave) has immob + cripple but is single target. So it's balanced around the single target aspect.

>

> There's only two main reasons to run staff really: ranged pressure AoE with fireball / meteor shower (lava font post nerfs a while ago made it pretty lame due to damage over time) + water attunement auto along with healing rain (staff 5 on water attunement). That's why you mostly see it on support tempests (soothing mist+staff auto in water) and fire weavers in WvW (to hit far cannons , siege on inner side of walls).

>

> Support tempests have used staff in the past in PVP , it's just that sword weaver is actual damage so that's why you don't see staff weavers.

>

>

>

 

looking at what you've talked about, most of it relates to how staff eles WORKS on WvW rather than how it could've work in conquest. Staff eles have always been a popular choice when looking for a ranged dps in WvW but what about conquest? Having a weapon purely focused for a single gamemode seems a little off to me. I'd like a weapon choice that could favor all three gamemodes rather than just switching weapon combis when switching gamemodes. YES i know sword weaver is actual damage but its melee. MELEE. Personally i've switched from many games and i've found that melee magicians to be very cool but i'd still want that 'og' magician of like a full aoe kinda class hence the changes i've spoken. lastly staff 1 air isnt really that op imo, a 1/4 or 1/2 sec daze effect AFTER holding staff 1 isnt really that substantial and it just adds another level of complexity to the class.

[alain.1659]

To handle this issue with small tweaks I would offer to improve combo finishers in general. Also meteor is a problematic skill in some areas as it misses too much. But reducing the radius is not the solution in my opinion. Actually I would want staff radius to be improved in general to give the feeling of an aoe weapon. Then the rooting skills, missing attacks etc can be justified.

 

Otherwise staff is fine. Other weapons are the root of the problem. Before all this, staff was the go to weapon in large scale combat in means of radius, range and damage. Now it is still good but not enough as other professions with more tools can provide similar amount of damage in a moving combat.

 

Also changing the hit/blast numbers of earth 2 would help the issue. Multiple blasts would make fields more usable in needed situations. Air 3 cast time should also be improved if we want to use the staff in spvp. And horrendous auto attacks might be improved but it feels like a part of the staff now :)

 

We should also look into the traits. Some of them are really compulsory to use the staff. But again I have to remind you that i love staff ele and i might be "slightly" biased about all this :)

 

I am really glad that people are discussing about elementalist staff. It is my favourite weapon set and I really love to play an aoe mage type figure.

[Yasai.3549]

Staff skills are extremely horrible for smallscale player vs player combat because :

 

1. They tend to require full uptime of skills affecting their target to actually be considered "good" (meaning the target actually has to be afk and eat the full effects of each spell to feel significant damage from it)

2. Cooldowns are disgustingly long.

 

It works extremely well for Zerg combat and honestly it is a pretty good "heavy artillery" skill set due to its amazing range coverage.

I think Staff is fine and has its place.

If yu wanna play a mage duelist in small scale, use Sceptre instead, it's much better and can be combo'd with Dagger or Focus.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

fire 3 an aura

lava font pulses cripple

earth 1 180 aoe

reduce air 3 cd by 10 sec

fire 4 a 2 charge like whats his name said

lol while youre at is make earth 3 2 charge as well

would be nice if meteor shower hits were more clustered together

autos could use some more dmg

 

and we're golden

[Lord of the Fire.6870]

> @"Stand The Wall.6987" said:

> make water 2 a daze and earth 2 a knockback, increase cd to 10

> lava font pulses cripple

> earth 1 180 aoe

> reduce air 3 cd by 10 sec

> make fire 4 a 2 charge like whats his name said

> lol while youre at is make earth 3 2 charge as well

>

> and we're golden

 

The problem is in pvp/wvw they made it so that all cc skills don't do dmg so you will lose dps with those changes. Also this thread isn't the first one okay fist one since the pvp patch about staff ele but since end 2018 staff ele isn't meta in PvE any more so there was a lot of posts and very long posts about this.

[Stand The Wall.6987]

> @"Lord of the Fire.6870" said:

> > @"Stand The Wall.6987" said:

> > make water 2 a daze and earth 2 a knockback, increase cd to 10

> > lava font pulses cripple

> > earth 1 180 aoe

> > reduce air 3 cd by 10 sec

> > make fire 4 a 2 charge like whats his name said

> > lol while youre at is make earth 3 2 charge as well

> >

> > and we're golden

>

> The problem is in pvp/wvw they made it so that all cc skills don't do dmg so you will lose dps with those changes. Also this thread isn't the first one okay fist one since the pvp patch about staff ele but since end 2018 staff ele isn't meta in PvE any more so there was a lot of posts and very long posts about this.

 

lol you're right, can't believe I forgot about that.

[Shiyo.3578]

> @"steki.1478" said:

> I dont see a reason why a weapon designed to fight 5/10+ targets needs to be balanced around 1v1 or 2v2 scenarios. Literally all other weapon combinations on ele excel in such combat.

>

> D/f weaver with lightning rod is one of the strongest builds for small scale fights right now, in both wvw and pvp.

 

Because we can't swap weapons in combat. No engineer weapon is "big zerg fights only",and the only other weapon like that is rev hammer and guess what? REVS CAN SWAP WEAPONS IN COMBAT.

[steki.1478]

> @"Shiyo.3578" said:

> > @"steki.1478" said:

> > I dont see a reason why a weapon designed to fight 5/10+ targets needs to be balanced around 1v1 or 2v2 scenarios. Literally all other weapon combinations on ele excel in such combat.

> >

> > D/f weaver with lightning rod is one of the strongest builds for small scale fights right now, in both wvw and pvp.

>

> Because we can't swap weapons in combat. No engineer weapon is "big zerg fights only",and the only other weapon like that is rev hammer and guess what? REVS CAN SWAP WEAPONS IN COMBAT.

 

Hammer sucks in small scale and so do engi weapons. They both use melee weapons for roaming (or in engi's case sometimes - rifle in melee range).

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

1500 range for meteor shower and regen rain would be appreciated.

With the big target of meteor shower you already lose some range + the cast-time, you almost always need burning retreat or flash to cast it, otherwise you can easily die from a sand shade or just the zerg progress.

And some rework : lava font for example because it's bad ; Moonsoon also, too slow for very low impact, increased radius or velocity would be cool; shock wave same,

[Shiyo.3578]

> @"steki.1478" said:

> > @"Shiyo.3578" said:

> > > @"steki.1478" said:

> > > I dont see a reason why a weapon designed to fight 5/10+ targets needs to be balanced around 1v1 or 2v2 scenarios. Literally all other weapon combinations on ele excel in such combat.

> > >

> > > D/f weaver with lightning rod is one of the strongest builds for small scale fights right now, in both wvw and pvp.

> >

> > Because we can't swap weapons in combat. No engineer weapon is "big zerg fights only",and the only other weapon like that is rev hammer and guess what? REVS CAN SWAP WEAPONS IN COMBAT.

>

> Hammer sucks in small scale and so do engi weapons. They both use melee weapons for roaming (or in engi's case sometimes - rifle in melee range).

 

Are you talking about eng hammer? Rev hammer sucks, yes, but it can swap weapons in combat and ele can't with staff. That's the issue, if you go staff ele, you're LOCKED into a zerg only weapons which no other class has to deal with.

[steki.1478]

> @"Shiyo.3578" said:

> > @"steki.1478" said:

> > > @"Shiyo.3578" said:

> > > > @"steki.1478" said:

> > > > I dont see a reason why a weapon designed to fight 5/10+ targets needs to be balanced around 1v1 or 2v2 scenarios. Literally all other weapon combinations on ele excel in such combat.

> > > >

> > > > D/f weaver with lightning rod is one of the strongest builds for small scale fights right now, in both wvw and pvp.

> > >

> > > Because we can't swap weapons in combat. No engineer weapon is "big zerg fights only",and the only other weapon like that is rev hammer and guess what? REVS CAN SWAP WEAPONS IN COMBAT.

> >

> > Hammer sucks in small scale and so do engi weapons. They both use melee weapons for roaming (or in engi's case sometimes - rifle in melee range).

>

> Are you talking about eng hammer? Rev hammer sucks, yes, but it can swap weapons in combat and ele can't with staff. That's the issue, if you go staff ele, you're LOCKED into a zerg only weapons which no other class has to deal with.

 

You can swap between fights though. You wont magically roam and fight 50 people at the same time.

[Einlanzer.1627]

My biggest problem with the staff is that each attunement is over-specialized and fire is the only one that's generally useful with the other 3 all being more niche and all but useless for solo play. I don't really see the point of that. Earth, Water, and to a lesser extent Air all give up too much damage for the support they bring.

 

Also, why do the #1 skill all have such slow, clunky, and boring animations?

[Strider.7849]

The only changes that staff needs is another aoe DPS and an increase in damage for meteor. I mentioned it in the past but I'll say it again, if they took staff air 5 and replaced it with air 4 (removing that trash aoe swiftness skill which is outdated/useless) then made a new skill for air 5, such as a storm similar to that of glyphs lightning storm, staff would be in a good place.

[Einlanzer.1627]

> @"Strider.7849" said:

> The only changes that staff needs is another aoe DPS and an increase in damage for meteor. I mentioned it in the past but I'll say it again, if they took staff air 5 and replaced it with air 4 (removing that trash aoe swiftness skill which is outdated/useless) then made a new skill for air 5, such as a storm similar to that of glyphs lightning storm, staff would be in a good place.

 

This isn't a bad idea, but I ALSO think water and earth have significant problems in that they give up far, far too much damage to provide the utility they do. This is also something that's outdated in their design.

[lLobo.7960]

Lava fount needs to apply burn. Its a fire field that does't burn!

All other staff #2 skills apply conditions, lets get fire staff some burns.

Fire #3 could be reworked into something more interesting: "Apply burn to your target and then spread the amount of burn stacks from your main target to up to 10 other targets around it."

 

Meteor Shower needs its weird nerfs to the dmg scaling reverted. It's just such a weird skill now. The scaling down of dmg on each hit makes it really weird.

Also... lets get those blasting meteors some burn stacks?

 

If they increase the radius of static field they need to make it a bit more like the scrapper one, where it stuns when it is used. Currently you can use to restrict movement in a PvP node, if its too big people will be able to move and dodge around inside the field and never get any cc.

[FrownyClown.8402]

I really cant see the problem with staff. Its support and control options offer alot. It sucks the damage was nerfed, but its still a great team oriented weapon. 1v1 is possible but usually requires damage from other sources such as overload.

[Zhaid Zhem.6508]

We don't talk about scepter ? :anguished:

Staff, okai, but scepter is below everything; if you don't play it with weaver and maximum candies (food, infusion, etc) in PvE / WvW you can't play it. In pvp it's even worse than staff, I'm not even sure dragon's tooth does 25% on a light golem.