18 replies to this topic

[Necro]

i was wondering what people considered better for supporting your team, the combo fields through a staff or the auras gained through an auramancer build?

[Fenice_86]

i prefer auras... relying on stuff that need teamwork to work is not efficient in current pug meta

[jthamind]

i'd take auras too. not only that, but you can still heal and give regen, might, and protection with daggers.

[WildHeart]

if the team has very high cooperation > combo fields
if not > auras

[Wifflebottom]

Pugs are reeeeeeally stupid so Auras, I've even caught some people AVOIDING my combo fields: sure Mr. Thief just walk out of the healing rain, it'd be very unfortunate if you were to, I dunno use clusterbomb or something...

[Bloggi]

Based on the responses so far the preference leans overwhelmingly towards auras and there is good reason for it. Personally I've run a support and exclusively with the staff since the beginning (experimented with d/d, s/f, s/d in open world PvE but only ever used a staff in dungeons) and thought to add my response, FWIW. The staff also has Magnetic Aura which is very useful.

Even in PUGs I've had a positive experience with combo fields. Firstly, some folks don't dodge, so if we throw a combo field on them they will likely sit in it, even if they don't know what it's for. That doesn't bother me entirely because the combo fields either cause damage, heal or have other beneficial effects even if not finished. Secondly, some players may move out of our combo fields unintentionally because they are taking aggro and actively kiting. Blasting Staff increases the radius of our fields by a fair bit and we can sometimes predict where the action might be before dropping the fields. Thirdly, I stand near my allies (unless there's good reason to spread out) and blast combo fields myself with Arcane Wave and Eruption (or traiting EA and dodging in Earth attunement), so I and at least some of my allies will gain the benefits. I look to see where my long-ranged allies are standing and using projectile finishers, and drop Static Field in their area for vulnerability stacking.

[Fenice_86]

Magnetic Aura is good but not comparable to Frozen Aura + Shocking Aura (this 1 also has double boon duration when activated),
on the other side dropping Fields where i predict my allies will go is... embarassing lol,
i'll just stick to Auras with pugs and Combo Fields only if i'm on teamspeak with friends/guildies

Edited by Fenice_86, 31 January 2013 - 11:24 PM.

[Bloggi]

Just to add, a lot of people probably already know this, I usually put blast finishers in Frozen Ground to trigger area Frost Armor. It is the same as Frost Aura and triggers the Zephyr's Boon trait. So while the staff only appears to give instant access to one aura, another kind of aura can be created quite easily.

[whodini]

Xekk, on 31 January 2013 - 10:26 PM, said:

Based on the responses so far the preference leans overwhelmingly towards auras and there is good reason for it. Personally I've run a support and exclusively with the staff since the beginning (experimented with d/d, s/f, s/d in open world PvE but only ever used a staff in dungeons) and thought to add my response, FWIW. The staff also has Magnetic Aura which is very useful.

Even in PUGs I've had a positive experience with combo fields. Firstly, some folks don't dodge, so if we throw a combo field on them they will likely sit in it, even if they don't know what it's for. That doesn't bother me entirely because the combo fields either cause damage, heal or have other beneficial effects even if not finished. Secondly, some players may move out of our combo fields unintentionally because they are taking aggro and actively kiting. Blasting Staff increases the radius of our fields by a fair bit and we can sometimes predict where the action might be before dropping the fields. Thirdly, I stand near my allies (unless there's good reason to spread out) and blast combo fields myself with Arcane Wave and Eruption (or traiting EA and dodging in Earth attunement), so I and at least some of my allies will gain the benefits. I look to see where my long-ranged allies are standing and using projectile finishers, and drop Static Field in their area for vulnerability stacking.

my thought is this is correct and more use like this would help ppl understand what is going on.  Also ppl need to start pinging those fields letting players know when its coming

Xekk, on 01 February 2013 - 01:20 AM, said:

Just to add, a lot of people probably already know this, I usually put blast finishers in Frozen Ground to trigger area Frost Armor. It is the same as Frost Aura and triggers the Zephyr's Boon trait. So while the staff only appears to give instant access to one aura, another kind of aura can be created quite easily.

wiki has. A nice list

[whodini]

Fenice_86, on 31 January 2013 - 11:23 PM, said:

Magnetic Aura is good but not comparable to Frozen Aura + Shocking Aura (this 1 also has double boon duration when activated),
on the other side dropping Fields where i predict my allies will go is... embarassing lol,
i'll just stick to Auras with pugs and Combo Fields only if i'm on teamspeak with friends/guildies

TS is nice but it really isn't difficult to ping

[Bloggi]

whodini, on 01 February 2013 - 01:46 AM, said:

wiki has. A nice list

Just looked there and sure it does, which is good info for everyone.

http://wiki.guildwar...i/Zephyr's_Boon

That page was last modified about 6 days ago and the addition may have been made recently. The final point about blast finishers in an Ice Field wasn't there when theorycrafting my elementalist about 4 months ago. Also, I just saw a response in another thread here suggesting Zephyr's Boon was a bit of a waste in a staff build that only had access to one aura when we do know it's easy enough to generate another aura with commonly-used skills.

Anyway, just putting it out there...we shouldn't write off the staff entirely, not even with PUGs.

[Shrimps]

Xekk, on 01 February 2013 - 01:20 AM, said:

Just to add, a lot of people probably already know this, I usually put blast finishers in Frozen Ground to trigger area Frost Armor. It is the same as Frost Aura and triggers the Zephyr's Boon trait. So while the staff only appears to give instant access to one aura, another kind of aura can be created quite easily.

Yes this is true, it is possible to trigger 2 possible auras with staff but you can trigger 3 with D/D

With D/D you have Shocking Aura, Frost Aura and if you drop down your Flame Field and then switch to earth attunement and use your 3 skill (Magnetic leap) you will activate the Fire Aura.

EDIT: Although I'm not sure if the Fire Aura grants boons to everyone in the party though.

Edited by Shrimps, 01 February 2013 - 02:08 AM.

[whodini]

Xekk, on 01 February 2013 - 02:03 AM, said:

Just looked there and sure it does, which is good info for everyone.

http://wiki.guildwar...i/Zephyr's_Boon

That page was last modified about 6 days ago and the addition may have been made recently. The final point about blast finishers in an Ice Field wasn't there when theorycrafting my elementalist about 4 months ago. Also, I just saw a response in another thread here suggesting Zephyr's Boon was a bit of a waste in a staff build that only had access to one aura when we do know it's easy enough to generate another aura with commonly-used skills.

Anyway, just putting it out there...we shouldn't write off the staff entirely, not even with PUGs.

between that list and reading the updates wiki puts out gives u everything u need to know

[Bloggi]

Shrimps, on 01 February 2013 - 02:07 AM, said:

Yes this is true, it is possible to trigger 2 possible auras with staff but you can trigger 3 with D/D

With D/D you have Shocking Aura, Frost Aura and if you drop down your Flame Field and then switch to earth attunement and use your 3 skill (Magnetic leap) you will activate the Fire Aura.

What I was trying to suggest was that with a staff, we have access to a wide variety of useful combo fields and are at the same time not entirely lacking when it comes to auras, and to encourage some thought on using both auras and fields with the same setup to provide support, rather than thinking about staff combo fields and [d/d] auramancers as separate entities.

Shrimps, on 01 February 2013 - 02:07 AM, said:

EDIT: Although I'm not sure if the Fire Aura grants boons to everyone in the party though.

Guess it should work with the Zephyr's Boon trait since Fire Armor from that combo is technically an aura, and would work in the same way as Frost Armor from blasting an Ice field. I've never tried it myself though.

[whodini]

Don't mind the read on forums. Gives great ideas wiki can't produce but I use wiki for both the update notes (link on homepage and basic knowledge.http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Game_updates. So the info is there if u keep up with looking at update notes

[whodini]

Anyway I'm on my Droid.  Harder to navigate.  I use combo fields a lot
. When even in a pug group the chances they trigger a finisher/blast are high and think it works better all around . My
Mes
Can keep up chaos armor on a regular basis through null field chaos storm and feedback. When that can be done to me that says alot

[WildHeart]

Shrimps, on 01 February 2013 - 02:07 AM, said:

EDIT: Although I'm not sure if the Fire Aura grants boons to everyone in the party though.

Combo Auras aren't work with PowerfulAuras.
They do work with ZephyrBoon and ElementalShielding, tough.

But tbh...when I need to swap to staff
I only change my RenewStamina to BlastingStaff and leave ZephyrBoon and ElementalShielding there.
Full team MagneticAuras with boon bonus is great in many situation
and combo FrostAura also apply aura (and boons) to multiple allies with no need to trait in PowerfulAuras.

[Fenice_86]

Yeah ofc, i didn't want to say that "absolutely you cant go auras with staff" that was not my intention
For example, i use magnetic aura at the end boss of Cof p1 to reflect its purple seeking missiles and send them back to him,
it's awesome to counter an aoe interrupt with an aoe reflect

[Bloggi]

Fenice_86, on 01 February 2013 - 09:33 AM, said:

For example, i use magnetic aura at the end boss of Cof p1 to reflect its purple seeking missiles and send them back to him,
it's awesome to counter an aoe interrupt with an aoe reflect

That's a superb example of the skill at work. It's always funny (in a good way) when we pull off that skill at the right time on that COF boss!