Lightning staffs are they pointless now?

giantpixie

As of the new update going live it’s looking like tanks and healers will be switching to ice staffs of inferno in some cases which kinda makes lightning staffs pointless. I’m curious if you guys have any suggestions to make them useful again?

Wuerstal

They will still be used in thrash-fights by damage dealers. But I agree that they now feel kinda pointless. In bossfights froststaff can be used by healers for brittle and more defences. Inferno can be used to increase damage. Lightning can be used for..... I honestly don't know. Offbalance still exists but you don't really get much out of it.. Except for magDKs when playing flame leash I can't think of anything offbalance is really interesting anymore.

Maybe they are more usefull in PvP? I don't pvp that much, so I wouldn't know.

Concussion-status effect applies Minor Vulnerability which you can get from alot of other skills.. Maybe the concussion status effect should be changed to another debuff that isn't as easy to come by?

Ascarl

It will still have its niche usage in builds like Xynode's easy-sorc but I agree that the golden age of lightning staffs is over.

giantpixie

Wuerstal wrote: »

They will still be used in thrash-fights by damage dealers. But I agree that they now feel kinda pointless. In bossfights froststaff can be used by healers for brittle and more defences. Inferno can be used to increase damage. Lightning can be used for..... I honestly don't know. Offbalance still exists but you don't really get much out of it.. Except for magDKs when playing flame leash I can't think of anything offbalance is really interesting anymore.

Maybe they are more usefull in PvP? I don't pvp that much, so I wouldn't know.

Concussion-status effect applies Minor Vulnerability which you can get from alot of other skills.. Maybe the concussion status effect should be changed to another debuff that isn't as easy to come by?

So what sort of debuff do we think it could apply instead?

robpr

Tanks got hit with their sustain - off-balance is still gonna be important in add-heavy pulls, for trash fights Shock Ring/Pulsar is very strong, and in pvp you cannot dodge the channel and there minor vulnerability is a valuable debuff on non-nb or warden.

Sangwyne

After this update, block cost has gone up massively, and I'm not sure that going Lightning is an option anymore for tanks. Add to that the fact that Concussion/Minor Vulnerability was nerfed from 8% to 5% and Exploiter was removed, which was a pretty sizable damage bonus to off-balance enemies, and not even Healers want to run this thing anymore. Perhaps Sorcs could use it to squeeze a tiny bit of extra mileage out of their Wall of Elements, but I'm not seeing else drop Inferno staff for DPS as it's just too strong, and healers/tanks probably want to use Ice staff now for the damage shields that Frost Wall applies to allies, along with the reduced block cost and increased mitigation. Lightning staves definitely are in need of a buff.

Deep_01

Ancient knowledge passive gives all your AoE abilities 8% damage increase if you equip a lightning staff. That's its use.

Bodycounter

Wuerstal wrote: »

Concussion-status effect applies Minor Vulnerability which you can get from alot of other skills.. Maybe the concussion status effect should be changed to another debuff that isn't as easy to come by?

The only debuff i can come up with would be Minor Breach that's not largely accessible at this point outside of tanks with Pierce Armor. Or Minor Courage for attacking concussed enemies?

robpr

Bodycounter wrote: »

Wuerstal wrote: »

Concussion-status effect applies Minor Vulnerability which you can get from alot of other skills.. Maybe the concussion status effect should be changed to another debuff that isn't as easy to come by?

The only debuff i can come up with would be Minor Breach that's not largely accessible at this point outside of tanks with Pierce Armor. Or Minor Courage for attacking concussed enemies?

Minor Breach procs of Sundered, physical damage status effect. I'd opt for minor cowardice, enervation (for pvp only though) or new one that increase Lightning Damage taken

Tannus15

lightning staff is so bad that even sorcs with their shock damage passive don't use them.

it should be "viable" for other classes and "preferred" for mag sorc.

concussive and off balance are inherently support buffs since if one person applies them, everyone else becomes redundant and should be changed to dps buffs. that said, the reason lightning staffs are bad has less to do with the staff and more to do with the complete lack of buffs for shock damage.

Where is engulfing for shock? why does unstable wall of fire do more damage? they just added another set that increases fire damage by 5%.

Add 10% shock damage taken to lightning flood. it's currently the worst AOE dps in the game and only run for the unique synergy, less so now that alkosh is dead.
Increase the concussive damage tick.
Increase the damage of wall of lightning. it's meant to be the AOE staff yet wall of fire does more damage. logic please?
change off balance to something that can benefit each individual using a lightning staff. increased spell damage vs that target or something.

if none of this happens, then at the very least the AOE % damage increase should carry over from the back bar for skills cast so it's viable to back bar a lightning staff.

the values should be balanced so that it's slightly ahead in a fight with lots of adds and slightly behind in a single target fight. sorc passive should make up that difference so it's even with a flame staff in single target.

with the lightning staff being the AOE staff, sorcs should be top tier for AOE with the shock passive, yet they are one of the worst AOE classes in the game. something got lost there when lightning flood got nerfed into the ground.

Araneae6537

I like lightning staff’s heavy attack. Since destruction staff is the only magic weapon, it would be really nice for it to have more variations and flavor. It would be great if all three elements were viable for DPS at least and maybe offered different options for support.

Skullstachio

Lightning staves aren’t as bad as they should be, sure inferno staves are used in most meta builds and beef up single target damage and more than I know. But as a Necromage who is completely fluent with Lightning Staves, the AoE Damage increase is good, heavy attacks damage nearby enemies for 100% of the damage done.

More importantly, I use a Lightning Staff with Draugrkin's Grip. While it may only affect one target for 6 seconds with a 9 second cooldown, the flat damage increase is not only good for DoT's, but I find it has a more significant impact on the Lightning Staff Heavy attack than that of other heavy attacks since it deals damage over 1.3 seconds as each tick of damage benefits from Draugrkin's Grip.

Edit: Draugrkin's Grip works especially well for a Necromancer using Shocking Siphon and Mystic Orb since they deal a tick of damage every 0.5 seconds.

Bodycounter

Tannus15 wrote: »

Lightning staff is so bad that even sorcs with their shock damage passive don't use them.
it should be "viable" for other classes and "preferred" for mag sorc.

I second this. It's kind of awkward that lightning staff is generally worse than fire staff for a class evolving around lightning itself. The same goes for Wardens with frost staffs. Half of their theme evolves around frost but you only take one Warden (and then not even the DPS but the healer or tank) with frost staff for Brittle, so meh.

Skullstachio wrote: »

More importantly, I use a Lightning Staff with Draugrkin's Grip. While it may only affect one target for 6 seconds with a 9 second cooldown, the flat damage increase is not only good for DoT's, but I find it has a more significant impact on the Lightning Staff Heavy attack than that of other heavy attacks since it deals damage over 1.3 seconds as each tick of damage benefits from Draugrkin's Grip.

Since Draugrkin's Grip has no crit chance attached to it, one line of magicka recovery and spell penetration that magicka classes generally don't need anymore since the last patch, the set does not seem very competitive. And i don't see any special interaction with lightning staffs here?

Andre_Noir

It's not lightning staff bad but flame one is overtuned. Burning is the main aspect here:

• it has no cooldown
• no one has immunity to it
• it can be applied by LA AND Wall of Elements with following boost to the wall's damage

Also devs seems thinks this way: "Fire for damage, ice for tanking and lightning - oh okay keep it exist"

AyaDark

Lightning staff is perfect weapon for any class.

What nonsence are you talking about !!!

Lightning staff is ok for DD.

Tanks - you have sword and shields and frost staff.

Use them ! If you for some reason use bow for tanking, it do not say that it have to be changed.

Now all is good with lightning staff on each class, we checked it and play it.

And it is good how it is, it is good and not meta, just like we like it to be.

AyaDark

Bodycounter wrote: »

[Quoted post was removed]

All our DD with 50k+ to 3 kk dummy on templar, DK, NB, Sork, Warden and necro are all right.

AyaDark

And you already make frost staff unplayable garbage for a lot of people including me, so stop such ideas already.

Ask for new weapon if you want any changes in it. We are good with one we have.

Do not want get some garbage again from our favorite weapons, becouse some one who even will not use it is so cared about it, and can not use it in right direction.

giantpixie

AyaDark wrote: »

And you already make frost staff unplayable garbage for a lot of people including me, so stop such ideas already.

Ask for new weapon if you want any changes in it. We are good with one we have.

Do not want get some garbage again from our favorite weapons, becouse some one who even will not use it is so cared about it, and can not use it in right direction.

Ice staffs are great now and are wanted in groups the changes to them are great so why would changes to lightning be bad?

WrathOfInnos

giantpixie wrote: »

Wuerstal wrote: »

They will still be used in thrash-fights by damage dealers. But I agree that they now feel kinda pointless. In bossfights froststaff can be used by healers for brittle and more defences. Inferno can be used to increase damage. Lightning can be used for..... I honestly don't know. Offbalance still exists but you don't really get much out of it.. Except for magDKs when playing flame leash I can't think of anything offbalance is really interesting anymore.

Maybe they are more usefull in PvP? I don't pvp that much, so I wouldn't know.

Concussion-status effect applies Minor Vulnerability which you can get from alot of other skills.. Maybe the concussion status effect should be changed to another debuff that isn't as easy to come by?

So what sort of debuff do we think it could apply instead?

Maybe a debuff version of Empower? Makes enemies take 40% more damage from Light and Heavy attacks. This would certainly be wanted in trial groups, so a healer or tank would need to run a Lightning Wall again. And it would also be appreciated by the solo, lightning heavy attack players, making up for the recent loss of Staff Expert on Light and Heavy Attacks.

AyaDark

giantpixie wrote: »

AyaDark wrote: »

And you already make frost staff unplayable garbage for a lot of people including me, so stop such ideas already.

Ask for new weapon if you want any changes in it. We are good with one we have.

Do not want get some garbage again from our favorite weapons, becouse some one who even will not use it is so cared about it, and can not use it in right direction.

Ice staffs are great now and are wanted in groups the changes to them are great so why would changes to lightning be bad?

It is so greate that i hate tanks with frost staffs from before last update, do not use it on my own tank when it was reworked, becouse 2 main reasons i use it for was removed.

Do you see to much DD with it ?

Do you use it your own by the way ?

Why you ask about lightning staff then ?

You are tank ? Why do not you use frost staff and ask about lightning then ?

If all is so good ?

Chilly-McFreeze

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

giantpixie wrote: »

Wuerstal wrote: »

They will still be used in thrash-fights by damage dealers. But I agree that they now feel kinda pointless. In bossfights froststaff can be used by healers for brittle and more defences. Inferno can be used to increase damage. Lightning can be used for..... I honestly don't know. Offbalance still exists but you don't really get much out of it.. Except for magDKs when playing flame leash I can't think of anything offbalance is really interesting anymore.

Maybe they are more usefull in PvP? I don't pvp that much, so I wouldn't know.

Concussion-status effect applies Minor Vulnerability which you can get from alot of other skills.. Maybe the concussion status effect should be changed to another debuff that isn't as easy to come by?

So what sort of debuff do we think it could apply instead?

Maybe a debuff version of Empower? Makes enemies take 40% more damage from Light and Heavy attacks. This would certainly be wanted in trial groups, so a healer or tank would need to run a Lightning Wall again. And it would also be appreciated by the solo, lightning heavy attack players, making up for the recent loss of Staff Expert on Light and Heavy Attacks.

Hmm... that would get us back to having 1 or 2 lightning staves on support but it wouldn't put lightning on competitive dd spot against flame staves.

AyaDark

Chilly-McFreeze wrote: »

WrathOfInnos wrote: »

giantpixie wrote: »

Wuerstal wrote: »

They will still be used in thrash-fights by damage dealers. But I agree that they now feel kinda pointless. In bossfights froststaff can be used by healers for brittle and more defences. Inferno can be used to increase damage. Lightning can be used for..... I honestly don't know. Offbalance still exists but you don't really get much out of it.. Except for magDKs when playing flame leash I can't think of anything offbalance is really interesting anymore.

Maybe they are more usefull in PvP? I don't pvp that much, so I wouldn't know.

Concussion-status effect applies Minor Vulnerability which you can get from alot of other skills.. Maybe the concussion status effect should be changed to another debuff that isn't as easy to come by?

So what sort of debuff do we think it could apply instead?

Maybe a debuff version of Empower? Makes enemies take 40% more damage from Light and Heavy attacks. This would certainly be wanted in trial groups, so a healer or tank would need to run a Lightning Wall again. And it would also be appreciated by the solo, lightning heavy attack players, making up for the recent loss of Staff Expert on Light and Heavy Attacks.

Hmm... that would get us back to having 1 or 2 lightning staves on support but it wouldn't put lightning on competitive dd spot against flame staves.

https://youtu.be/W9aSy1cZJlQ

Really ???

https://youtu.be/mgVCTkCXxkI

Our templar, sorcs, me as DK, our NB, wardens, and necr will disagree !

May be you read too much of META for today ?

Tannus15

@AyaDark interesting build, how does it look on a 21m?

Tannus15

So i copied your 3mil dummy setup on my standard mag sorc setup and noticed all the little things you're doing to cheese out a 3mil to bring your dps up.

like 3 infused spell damage instead of 3 BT which makes more sense on a 3mil because it goes down so fast the BT doesn't really have time to kick in comapred to buffing your first ult as much as possible.
running lover for max pen on the 3mil
swapping out ele suspectability for another dot once it's placed
ignoring accelerate after pre-buff
running shock damage back bar instead of weapon damage

Tannus15

and this is the part we're complaining about

here is the SAME BUILD with 2 lightning staffs:



I'd love to see your build on an inferno staff. Like, literally the same setup on infernos.

Lightning is far behind where it should be.

AyaDark

Lightning staff give important thing, that dummy meta do not understand.

It show marker to your party to easely attack the same target, it gives more AOE DPS.

This game is not only about DPS.

It is good DPS and support staff.

It is no problem too exchange 3 k dps for that.

55-> 52 only 5-6% dps lose but more AOE damage and ability to show line like target to your group, that you need to assist.

For me it is quite good exchange, but if only strike dummy - you will not see any help in it on dummy.

Septimus_Magna

Even for AOE a fire staff has an unfair advantage due to fact that fire blockade + 10% from engulfing flame deals more damage than shock blockade with the extra 8% AOE damage. Now with an extra 5% fire damage from Encratis the difference is increased even more. Light attacks are a big portion of the dps so using a shock staff on the front bar is also not a viable option.

Like others have said there should be elemental damage buffs for shock, frost and possibly even magic damage.

Bodycounter

Septimus_Magna wrote: »

Even for AOE a fire staff has an unfair advantage due to fact that fire blockade + 10% from engulfing flame deals more damage than shock blockade with the extra 8% AOE damage. Now with an extra 5% fire damage from Encratis the difference is increased even more. Light attacks are a big portion of the dps so using a shock staff on the front bar is also not a viable option.

ZoS could think about adding 10% increased shock damage to the synergy „Conduit“ of the Lightning Splash ability. This synergy has been boring forever and the spell itself does not feel strong at the moment. It feels bad that lightning is worse than fire for AoE in bigger groups.

AyaDark

You can use AOE spammable from destro staff if you use lightning destro and LA, or HA with it is AOE too.

And really all is OK now, we do not need buff, we do not want nerf after that. All is ok like it is.

Do not want any changes to game play.

About Atro 21 kk , damage itself is smaller, because we need another sets to get DPS.

If LA need sustain we need galenwe, but if HA may be have 5-7% smaller DPS in solo target, but more AOE dps, Templars HA builds have really good damage with out galenwe, but it do not buff them in raid, so it is harder to buff templars dps in 12 people group.

But he is good support and can help on mechanics, so he is good too.

We are not so focused on only DPS, HA builds are more about adapting, and AOE damage, support each other.

So DPS not so important, and i even do not hit 21 kk dummy a lot. Too much HP to hit.

Better kill some boss with more proffit

Tannus15

literally the only build i know of to use a lightning staff in PvE is the vDSA master staff which has good AOE as well as a decent spammable, but even then you're better off running an inferno back bar because it's literally just better.
in every way.

@AyaDark your build would be stronger with an inferno back bar and a lightning front bar. it'll feel the same, you'll still have the lightning staff HA on the front but it'll do more damage in both AOE and single target. in all situations.
The lightning staff AOE bonus only applies when you have that staff in hand. this means even if you cast wall of fire, when you switch to the front bar you get the lightning staff damage bonus on the ticks.

the way all builds are set up with ground target AOE on the back bar and single target skills on the front makes the back bar passive irrelevant and you should just use whatever skills are stronger, which is wall of fire, especially on a magdk running engulfing.

AyaDark

Ahahaha it is funny. My build is stronger like it is now.

But yes with fire staff on atro it will be more DPS, but in real fights it just will not work

That is how different real fights and dummy are.

But you got me, some times i really parse with it on back bar, but newer use it in real conditions