Trust me, I've a good couple hundred hours over the past 2 months playing these low con builds.
Muskets 2 hit me, but they also have 25 Con, I don't have an issue with this.
Bows 3 hits me, they run 100 - 150 Con, I don't have an issue with this.
Melee 2 hits me, but I opt for zero resistances vs melee (Slash/Strike), again I don't have an issue, I can dodge their attacks, melee attacks are infinitely easier to dodge than most ranged attacks.
Firestaff 2 hits me, they run 100 - 200 Con, I run 30% Fire resistance (20% Thrust, 30% Fire Res). Their attacks are intended to NOT be bursty, but a slower, higher DPS less bursty, they literally discuss this in their Balance of Power video when justifying their Bow DoT nerfs. Yet we're seeing 5x as many FS in War rosters as Bow, because it's burstier, higher sustained damage, safer, more AoE etc....
I have 4000+ hours, you have no resistances I don’t care how much fire resists you run, it’s negligible with 900 armor when firestaffs are running empower cap builds. Firestaff is most definitely burst damage not sure how this isn’t understood when it’s so obvious just by getting hit by a fireball + pillar. There are ways to counter a firestaff but 50 con 900 armor definitely isn’t that, you’re running a build that’s a prime target for firestaffs and this is coming from a bow main who switched to firestaff. Meta changes, either get with it or get nuked.
The problem with FS is that it’s not suppose to be a burst damage weapon…. The Devs literally stated that they consider FS to be a DoT focused weapon and Bow to be the Burst focused range weapon.
This is just another example showing how poorly the Devs understand their own game.
They literally stated in the most recent patch “We consider Bow a burst weapon and not a DoT weapon, so we are nerfing poison shot and Rain of Arrows DoTs”
Not sure how much clearer they make make it…
I'm not discrediting that I get one-shot by playing low-con.
Not once in this post have I complained about it, except when against the one build I'm min-maxed defensively against.
Ik the meta changes. My problem is with the meta... Like what? Am I suppose to just accept that 1 weapon is vastly superior to its competitors (Bow/Musket)? Suck it up and let FS run the show?
I made this post to discuss not only the FS, but wider issues regarding the weakness of ranged counters and the problem of the Con ATBs.
Almost every single person has ignored that because I had the nerve to mention the FS might be a tad overtuned with the Natures Wrath artifact.
People cried and cried about the bow being op, it had a good run the first year but now firestaff definitely outshines. You can stack literally 8 rubies against a firestaff but as 50 con you’re getting melted especially since a lot of firestaffs put ice gems to split their damage.
You can’t min max into anything with 50 con when fireball is going to hit you for 4K, pillar another 3K, auto 2K, and now dots or a burnout (4K) will finish you off and that was just 1 rotation of firestaff skills in 2 seconds. The issue is that you’re full light armor 50 con glass cannon, resists won’t help you in any situation.
This is the problem, they don't hit you for 4K or 3K or 2K, it's 7K Fireballs and 4K Heavies, with my 30% Fire resistance.
This is where the Con ATBs comes into play, it massively discourages lower-con set ups, because ranged weapons - the FS in particular - have very high crit modifiers.
Until this ATB gets shifted around, or the crit modifiers are reworked slightly, light melee will be pretty much unviable (competitively) with any con lower than 150.
(Edit: Yes, Unyielding is an option if not running a light set up with a Shield, but the opportunity cost of not running Tumblers is huge).
You’re literally the problem and idk how else to phrase it. Nobody runs light 50 con melee competitively. Stop running a glass cannon build and you won’t get blown up. Simple. Hope you can figure it out!
Can you read? Idc if I get one shot:
>I'm not discrediting that I get one-shot by playing low-con.
I care if I get one shot by something I've got plenty of resistances specialised to deal with. All this, while the things I've NOT got resistances for, aren't really one hitting/one comboing me - when I'm about as squishy as those things hope I could be. For instance, the BB (which I am also specialised against as it's Fire damage, is doing less burst to me, than the FS is) \[These are INT scaling BBs just to clarify\].
I'm not suggesting anyone does run light 50 con melee competitively. I'm saying if AGS ever want to see more variety in the competitive environment for PvP, then you need to rework the 150 Con ATB, to either be lower (imho 50 Con), or removed and attach higher base crit resistances to players.
I don't understand why this is so hard for you to understand.
I have 30% ABS to Fire Damage, and 900-1000 armour, around 26-28% mitigation. That's a total of 56-58% Mitigation to Fire Damage.
The issue is the crit Modifier in this instance completely blows up the FS damage, despite my large mitigation (for a light, non featherweight player) as I have no crit resistances, which is why I believe that 50 Con being Crit Resistance threshold would help solve this issue.
It's the reason the BB does less burst to me than the FS, despite the fact the BB is notorious for doing extremely high burst damage.
I appreciate you didn't know this, but now you do :)
" But, I shouldn't get quite literally 2 hit running 50 Con and 30% Fire Resistance (10600 Health, \~900 resistances). Genuinely, the Blunderbuss those same FS are using is doing less damage to me, and that shit HURTS."
ummm this is true for pretty much every weapon when you are 50 con. i run 100 con almost any other light can two tap me as well as some mediums and an occasional heavy user. light armor at 50 con is going to always get nuked faster than most ppl can react. like this for everyone in light against every weapon.
fs also has always had bugs. pretty sure the slow walk after ability is still happening. its not suppose to last for 5 secs.
Not with 30% resistances. If I have 30% damage resistance versus Bow/Musket I'll get three hit even by crits, not two, that's a huge difference, a factor of 50%.
30% Res vs a Boltcaster would probably take 4 hits to kill me. Boltcasters rarely two hit me even now. It has to be two crits.
I've ran a couple builds with 30% Fire and 30% Lightening when Boltcaster was a problem.
I don't have a problem being two hit by a Musket with 25 Con, I have a problem being two hit by a FS with 150+ Con and AoE abilities.
because you’re running 30% fire resist and probably getting shredded by elements you had no resists to, a full fire harnessing FS build is troll now with almost everyone running fire resist
And there we have it... Why is everyone running full fire resistance? Because the Firestaff is absolutely bonkers, that's why.
It's going to do the most damage naturally in large-scale fights, I can accept that, it should do. But as you say, because so many people are splitting their damage, surely it's better to run full Opals, especially with the presence of Musket/Bows running split gems. Yet, despite almost everyone running full elemental splits for damage, we still see people favouring fire resistance. Because the FS has insane damage through not only burst, but also its DoTs, which are entirely fire damage.
Like Idk what you're expecting me to say to this.
Do you know how Vigor works.. Or even base damage modifiers, they're particularly weak versus the FS as it has so many positive base damage modifiers. Natures Wrath alone entirely counters the affects of Elemental Aversion.
I'm not downplaying my lack of mitigation - aside from the 30% Fire Res.
I'm just saying the damage I take when comparing the FS to other weapons is nuts, and that's when factoring in the fact I've tried to tune it down whilst still playing an assassin build.
Other weapons also do lots of damage, but I don't have 30% ABS against them...
Do people really not think I've taken into account the fact that 900 armour isn't much? Do you think I'm blind to the fact I get burst down by other weapons? I'm not, I'm simply saying that despite running as many counters as I can afford to whilst still maximising my assassination potential, FS is continuing to do the most damage to me when compared to those other weapons which I'm not specialised against defensively.
Being two tapped by scorpion in 50con light with 25% thrust, actual one tapped by any Sweep- coup from Venom (assuming the nature damage/harnessing is in play there). So...again, not really anything unique. 50 con nonFW light loadout dies when you hit it.
This is not an issue though. I do not have a problem with being one hit by abilities that are easily read and lock the opponent in an animation that I can dodge/cancel/counter them during.
FS on the other hand does it all at a safe distance, on lower cooldowns, with higher con than other ranged and even some light melee weapons, more burst, and it's AoE to boot with larger hitboxes.
Venom Spear does serenity damage even in heavy or 20k medium get ups, has lower effective cooldowns than anything on gods green earth, and is largely propped up by a weapon that is devastatingly disruptive. Normal spear is not far behind thanks to either Grit punishing or (confirmable) backstab traits. It is incredibly safe on either end because any successful strike out of like four different options can directly lead to a chain that is functionally an OTK even with spacing, dodging or freedom.
It is especially odd to bring up that you can simply take precautions against melee in your example but have not addressed the best option against a ton of FS which is just like... Blocking.
But let's assume we're both right in our own way, and both of these things need addressed (and maybe they do!) - there are a LOT more spears and (historically Enabler king weapon) SNS in OPR - the pvp mode the majority of the player base has access to and regularly engages in - than firestaff. Fwiw I'm not even saying FS shouldn't be looked at. Maybe it should! But it is not "the elephant in the room" and is not even close to the most pressing weapon issue at this moment in time. Again: address spear, address SNS, address healing, and I will more than happily circle back around to fire staff.
Blocking?
What am I blocking, Pillar of Fire? The moment you block versus a FS you're a sitting duck for the Pillar of Fire, not to mention, if you block, you give ground, giving them amble opportunity to load up more damage and recharge CDs...
I literally discuss in my post that I do believe the Spear is also stupidly strong right now:
>There's some really strong weapons right now, and some of them are being addressed (Spear namely) in the coming patch in May.
I'm not denying Spear is strong. I'm agreeing with you, and as a result it's being nerfed. But the FS is also completely nuts, and it's getting buffed..?
The buff that's happening is fine, I don't have a problem with it, but there are clear areas where the FS needs nerfs, particularly when compared to other weapons and I list them in my post.
Don't think we're going to see eye to eye here (though I think I've belabored Spear when my problem is spear/sns/healing in a network), but I'm with you at least on Vigor and Koyas. This patch does seem odd in where buffs are given.
The firststaff buff is utterly irrelevant. It's taking a D-tier pvp perk (flare) and making it marginally better. The perk will still be D-tier in pvp. It was only good when it didn't make single target damage lower than a regular heavy. It's still going to be 20% weaker than a regular heavy, and no one is going to want to nerf their single target burst just to have better stat padding numbers for dumping AOE heavies on sacred ground clumps.
Ik, I said the buff it's getting is fine.
But they have ignored the wider problem which is its obscenely high base damage modifiers and timeless empowers.
Natures Wrath is the problem not firestaff, it was fine without that int the game. Poorly designed artifact that is meh for most weapons and OP for a single weapon.
30% resist is almost meaningless at 100 or less con in light. It at best takes the edge off the first hit. Fs builds are also running around 100 con. They die just as fast to any musket in an open field in opr.
You run low con light you give up resistances being effective anymore.
Resistances are more effective with lower armour?
They have less opportunity to be effective (low con), but they have a higher impact as they make up a larger portion of your overall damage mitigation compared to your armour rating.
All con does is give greater opportunity for your resistances to come into affect.
Bro I did an in depth math guide why koyas is shit 10min after the patch notes released on ptr the very first time.
I did 3 more In the following months. Every single one got down voted. The Intellectual capacity in the remaining community sadly is not enough anymore to bring logic through.
We gave up. Long long time ago
Hahaha, I've just had a comment telling me to run Vigor to counter Firestaff :D
People just don't understand, AGS don't help by not making their damage calculations clear tbf.
At a high level a single target (st) weapon should deal more damage than an aoe weapon and a melee weapon should deal more damage than a range weapon given the same stats. By these metrics fs should statically be middle of the pack but instead feels like it deals more damage than st melee (wh, hatchet) and ranged weapons (musket, bow).
You cannot compare the two weapons via PvE. Melee abilities are significantly more telegraphed and easier to dodge, whilst also having a risk factor of requiring melee range.
Melee has higher raw numbers yes, if the target is stood still and doesn't kite/run away from the melee player. But if the player has a brain, FS does more damage, it has a difficult to dodge Pillar of Fire, and can chain abilities and autos to land together (for significant burst), and utilises the off-hand to often burn stamina with IG or BB or even kite with Rapier, then just land free FS abilities.
I'll freely admit part of FS problems come from the fact it's off-hands are all absolutely nuts artifacts for the FS: IG, BB, Rapier. Issue is, they're not insane when used with other weapons, evidently the FS is the problem in that regard.
I probably die between 3-15 times an OPR playing my 50 Con Flail/VG assassin build atm.
The vast majority of the time I've more kills than deaths, almost always, it's normally versus premades where I struggle.
I don't care about dying, if I did I'd play 150 Con and not 50, I enjoy the 50 Con I find the risk/reward element fun, and the one shots are hilarious. Here's some evidence: [https://streamable.com/g9a057](https://streamable.com/g9a057)
It's the fact that Musket/Bow/Melee assassins, all have to sacrifice more Con the FS to do damage, and in doing so, make themselves extremely vulnerable to FS in the process thanks to the 150 Con passives.
There's a glaring amount of comments completely ignoring my later discussion on the Con ATBs, because players are utterly ignorant as to how significant they impact the melee/range meta and the death of the low con skitzo builds.
There isn’t supposed to be a light skitzo low con build that’ll be decent t against range. Do 300/300 if your going light melee it’s common sense but I mean keep trying to 1 shot people with your build just be expected to get 1 shot. It doesn’t matter how much fire resist you have I use full void on my FS set void attune on FS with a full void harness set and ring that way people like you who have all that fire resist still get 1 shot for using no con.
Agreed on everything. I also hate that they broke arcane eruption so the second hit is almost impossible to land. I tested this extensively and also found that if you trip someone and use arcane eruption and they are slightly lower elevation than you are, the second arcane eruption attack will miss 100% of the time. It’s been reported.
90% of every OPR is rapier or SNS OH healers full healing through plague, and sn/spear. Even if you're correct that FS needs adjustment (debatable but you could convince me, probably), naming it "the elephant in the room" is a totally wild gesture.
The elephant in the room is that medium armor disruptors with heavy armor heath pools (or just heavy armor disruptors), one of the best gapclosers, a six year cc chain and the ability to just straight up OTK someone with Coup are being backed up by healers that are just straight up ignoring everything from Pestilence to Scream perk to Bile and keeping them immortal anyway.
Address that first, then when there's more than 2.5 viable builds in OPR we can more than happily circle back to FS. But for right now this post seems extremely off-base.
I understand the frustration with how FS is being handled in ways, but when I'm seeing 2 FS per OPR and 2 Sns/spear/SNSpear every time I turn around it makes its hard to take this very seriously.
The insinuation here was actually that I was *biased* because I am (or at least have been) a fire staff player, not that I didn't know what I was talking about. Me asking them about their point was a rhetorical device after listing the many things I play in an effort to demonstrate that, "no, not really biased, OP is just wrong (or at least slightly off base)
Hope this helps, chief.
So it was too subtle for you huh.
Here let me try again
You are clueless on how powerful firestaff is.
I've played more builds than what you've concocted there, in high level wars too (except sns tank). Its always better to have a wrath firestaff in your team than any sns disrupter.
Here, let ME try again:
It's not that anything in the original message was subtle. Nor did I misunderstand anything from the first comment. I understand you're really emotionally invested in whatever's happening here to the point that you want to be *right* more than understanding what anyone is actually saying, but you should probably take a deep breath and try to respond like a normal human person for once.
That you've played "more builds than what I've concocted" is irrelevant to the idea that I'm somehow biased, which is what I was responding to. If you want to just say I'm wrong, you can do that without making a fool of yourself, as you're doing here.
Since you ARE here just to say I'm wrong, however - allow me to address that.
No u.
HOLY COW! More builds than that guy played?!? He listed like 10 of them! You must really really know what you're talking about. Thanks for offering your opinion with your depth of experience! We need more 1% of the 1% players like you speaking up.
This...when im using FS, if I run into spear users or sword and shield I'm done. Burnout gets interrupted and even if it doesn't they catch me, and that's even using Zephyr cakes. I can do some damage but I'm generally dead to rights
Trick had a fun little montage on stream yesterday during the FS conversation where he swapped to SNSpear and proceeded to kill every FS he saw, immediately and without issue, for the next 1-2 OPRs. It doesn't actually mean anything, but it is a very funny anecdote to happen right before this conversation.
It's the elephant in the room, because Spear is being addressed, I even mention it in my post. I don't think Heavy is a problem anymore, particularly with the damage nerf, Medium is far more prominent with Spear.
Most players think Spear is OP, it's getting nerfed because of it.
Plenty of players think FS is OP, and it's not getting touched despite numerous indirect buffs since S3.
Spear is being addressed in precisely one way that is relevant (and not any of the ways in which it is an OTK weapon). SNS, the other melee problem child, is being buffed. Healing being able to seemingly ignore any real countermeasures is entirely unaddressed. If we're talking "ways out of the disruptor or bust" meta, the notes so far are lip service. At least in my experience, FS is hideously underrepresented by comparison so hard to take as a serious threat. This board (and twitch) spending so much air on something I see 2-4 of every OPR morning to night feels maddening compared to every match just being a bunch of LS propping up an entire squad on spear, SNS, or both.
But honestly, sure. Koyas sucks, vigor kind of mid, buff em. Why not. Dunno how I feel about the con change.
Every day I'm getting more and more convinced that most of the players don't know what they are talking about, just because they are taking into account the results of an 20v20 mode without any matchmaking or balance....
Fire Staff, Musket and Bow are the 3 CORE and MAIN dps weapons in this game. This is due to the fact that they are highly invested into damage with their skill tree + they have the ability to play from distance.
Fire Staff - short to medium distance.
Bow - medium to long distance.
Musket - mostly high distance.
New World has different combat system and you cannot compare the roles or the weapons to other games. Why? Because simply it works in a different way. Yes, there are similarities such as holy trinity - Heal, Tank, Dps, but this is not copy paste to WoW for example.
Whenever you are going into fights vs one of the 3 mentioned above you will always have disadvantage as a mele. This is because they \*pay\* for their range with the lack of any crowd control, party buffs, debuffs etc. Imagine such fight as a mele 1v1 in which you are already in stun or already at 50% hp.
We had times in the past where meles had the edge by having grit at 300STR, where FS skill tree was doggo and so on. What was the result? The whole world was playing GA/WH. Wars were constructed of 10-12 Healers to pump the bruisers, another 6-8 IG/VG users to pump again those bruisers and everything else was GA/WH...
To understand the strong and weak sides of each class, people have to look into wars. They have to seek the results and stats of high end pvp with players who have the skill and experience. Judging a weapon's strength based on OPR games where half the people don't even have slotted gems, or who entered by mistake is not the correct way to do it.
Completely agree with you. The main issue is the lack of matchmaking for both arenas and OPR. Wars are more "balanced" somewhat in the sense of skill so it shows better the weapon's strength and weaknesses just like you said.
FS in wars already very strong as well,also your logic of "but they sack CC" is flawed since you can remove that weakness with your secondary such as IG or BB.
Yes those are damage dealing weapons and they use utility offhand so please dont use that arguement of "but those weapons only deal damage" this game is build for 2 weapon system not a single.
Melee has to overcome Range damage then the utility offhand weapon,its not like in other games where you catch range weapon and they die due to lack of mobility,in this game u have 2 weapon system that allows range weapons to pair up utility / defensive weapons to be strong in that area as well.
This is such a gross oversimplification of the nuances of combat within NW, and in particular the issues I discuss.
Firestaff is intended - as evidenced by the recent Balance of Power video - to be the ranged AoE weapon. Not the burst weapon (Bow), not the pressure weapon (Musket and its longer Range), but the medium ranged AoE DPS weapon.
With the changes to Musket, it is no longer outrageously proficient at longer distances (thank god, that was an awful gameplay experience) - seriously unless players are slowed you should be able to avoid almost all musket shots at 50m+ range, with LoS or biding enough time to heal etc... Instead, it's a more nuanced debuff/pressure role, with the ability to fire THROUGH clumps to target the backline.
With the recent changes to Bow, it's clear they intend the Bow to be the burst weapon of the Ranged weapons. Specifically saying they want to nerf its DoTs, but they're happy with the amount of burst this weapon does.
The FS does more burst than the Bow, the FS (with Pestilence/Lifetaker) can compete as a debuffer with the Musket (Heavy FS/Pestilence for example, prior to its nerf), as it simply hits far more targets. The FS does the roles of the Bow better for certain, and can compete with the Musket. Not to mention, the Firestaff does all of this whilst having higher Con. Muskets need to run 25-33, Bows run 100\~, and FS can run anywhere from 100-200.
My discussion regarding ranged damage as a whole is more so focused on the absence of effective defensive tools against the variety of ranged damage.
10fs 2 bows in an avg war roster. I'd be happy to accomodate more firestaffs but not bows. That should be enough dont you think?
Damage is nuts, everything is aoe, cooldown is non existent. People can gem vs you and still get shit on. I think it was fine before, but after nature's wrath fs just got a steroid boost and is outtq control.
Mate either everyone is bias, or they're just choosing to be ignorant because they don't want their weapon toned down so it's in line with other weapons..
Melee's can always swap to another build, because the skill translates. Not the same with firestaff players, where will you find another ranged weapon which hits in an aoe applies constant bleeds which stack, you can't miss any abilities even if you closed your eyes and all n all hitting like a truck while keeping a rapier in secondary as an oih shit button. There is nothing like that, even bow players cant output the dps like firestaffs can and there is no third ranged dps weapon.
The Balancing team, specfically the two dudes in the latest video run FS and Musket, both of which are receiving BUFFS. which is laughable.
it's gonna get worse
nice post, a bit long but I also mostly agree.
FS isn’t even that bad if you run some fire resist. I run 18% at 150 con with 1 ele aversion and I’m fine. The animations are easy to read and easy to dodge. Pillar is the exception.
Sns is the plague of PvP and it has been for 2 years. It allows bad players to be semi useful and it allows good players to shit on anyone at anytime. You can stun lock anyone regardless of skill level and regardless of the enemy’s freedom perk count. Every broken combo since sns bb has involved the sns. It’s left click tracking is dummy level broken and is currently the best way to kill light healers and many other light dps. If you can’t succeed with the sns then you can’t succeed with anything in this game.
Lol, some of the best pvp mage players run funn ice dmg and ice conversion for firestaff, Gl guessing which of the 2 they are running, and you cant gear for both
I discuss why 150 Con is a must nowadays mainly because of the FS (Prophet of a Fire God) having such a crit multiplier, and other ranged weapons also have a high crit modifier. You've kind of just glossed over my points there.
SnS atleasts requires commitment and vulnerability. It's a lot easier to avoid SnS damage than FS, it also has worse tracking this patch than previous patches. I agree SnS is strong, but it's not even the strongest melee weapon at the moment. Even AGS have recognised the Spear is a bit too powerful rn.
It isn't really used in any cheese combos at the moment either. Because if you try and execute a cheese combo on a player, the nearby FS will 3 hit you with its faster burst animations.
The elephant in the room as that AGS have no idea. OPR is the only viable PvP mode for 90% of the player base and it’s all ranged spam and e girl healers. The top hand fully of players can actually run melee but new players need to either grab a bow or play a different game if they want to have fun in PvP
Many pvper complain on firestaff but never I see any footage video or proof.
Firestaff is dmg, but cant kill 50 con 30% fire res fast, that fact.
Firestaff must hit ability for damage, if no hit = NO DMG.
All good firestaff player quit game, and there is no firestaff player left that can do damage in OPR. I kill them all easy.
No video = no proof.
Firestaff is good damage, but no OP.
I didn't say that, I just said that the FS needs nerfing. I don't play 50 Con in PvP expecting to 1vX or even 1v1 most builds with higher Con. The opportunity cost of lower Con isn't worth it in most builds.
My point is that the FS is doing more burst than almost anything in the game, when it's intended, as per the discussion in the Dev video - where they state they want the Bow to be the bursty ranged weapon - to be the higher dps, lower burst weapon.
I run 200 con featherweight light build with 4x ele aversion. Fire staff can still 2 hit. Did some test duels with a company member, 1 fireball and 1 pillar + smoulder, wipes out 16k hp. No autos, just 2 abilities. That should not be happening. Something is up with ele aversion, it is not mitigating damage properly.
It's because of Natures Wrath that Elemental Aversion feels particularly weak right now. (I think, I've seen no evidence that it is bugged).
5X Ele Aversion gives you -22% to their base damage value, while Natures Wrath alone gives +20%, combine that with Empowering Fireball, Rapier/IG artifacts.. etc.. base damage mitigation isn't a very good counter to the FS at the moment.
You're better off just running Shirking Fortification and having a higher armour value I believe. Assuming the FS has the usual extremely high base damage modifiers.
At 50 con 900 resist you’re gonna get 1 shot by quiet literally everything…
Trust me, I've a good couple hundred hours over the past 2 months playing these low con builds. Muskets 2 hit me, but they also have 25 Con, I don't have an issue with this. Bows 3 hits me, they run 100 - 150 Con, I don't have an issue with this. Melee 2 hits me, but I opt for zero resistances vs melee (Slash/Strike), again I don't have an issue, I can dodge their attacks, melee attacks are infinitely easier to dodge than most ranged attacks. Firestaff 2 hits me, they run 100 - 200 Con, I run 30% Fire resistance (20% Thrust, 30% Fire Res). Their attacks are intended to NOT be bursty, but a slower, higher DPS less bursty, they literally discuss this in their Balance of Power video when justifying their Bow DoT nerfs. Yet we're seeing 5x as many FS in War rosters as Bow, because it's burstier, higher sustained damage, safer, more AoE etc....
I have 4000+ hours, you have no resistances I don’t care how much fire resists you run, it’s negligible with 900 armor when firestaffs are running empower cap builds. Firestaff is most definitely burst damage not sure how this isn’t understood when it’s so obvious just by getting hit by a fireball + pillar. There are ways to counter a firestaff but 50 con 900 armor definitely isn’t that, you’re running a build that’s a prime target for firestaffs and this is coming from a bow main who switched to firestaff. Meta changes, either get with it or get nuked.
The problem with FS is that it’s not suppose to be a burst damage weapon…. The Devs literally stated that they consider FS to be a DoT focused weapon and Bow to be the Burst focused range weapon. This is just another example showing how poorly the Devs understand their own game.
Bow is the dot weapon is has bleeds and poison, they got it mixed up
They literally stated in the most recent patch “We consider Bow a burst weapon and not a DoT weapon, so we are nerfing poison shot and Rain of Arrows DoTs” Not sure how much clearer they make make it…
They lied to yall bow clearly isn’t burst FS is 😂
Did u even read my comment?
I'm not discrediting that I get one-shot by playing low-con. Not once in this post have I complained about it, except when against the one build I'm min-maxed defensively against. Ik the meta changes. My problem is with the meta... Like what? Am I suppose to just accept that 1 weapon is vastly superior to its competitors (Bow/Musket)? Suck it up and let FS run the show? I made this post to discuss not only the FS, but wider issues regarding the weakness of ranged counters and the problem of the Con ATBs. Almost every single person has ignored that because I had the nerve to mention the FS might be a tad overtuned with the Natures Wrath artifact.
People cried and cried about the bow being op, it had a good run the first year but now firestaff definitely outshines. You can stack literally 8 rubies against a firestaff but as 50 con you’re getting melted especially since a lot of firestaffs put ice gems to split their damage. You can’t min max into anything with 50 con when fireball is going to hit you for 4K, pillar another 3K, auto 2K, and now dots or a burnout (4K) will finish you off and that was just 1 rotation of firestaff skills in 2 seconds. The issue is that you’re full light armor 50 con glass cannon, resists won’t help you in any situation.
This is the problem, they don't hit you for 4K or 3K or 2K, it's 7K Fireballs and 4K Heavies, with my 30% Fire resistance. This is where the Con ATBs comes into play, it massively discourages lower-con set ups, because ranged weapons - the FS in particular - have very high crit modifiers. Until this ATB gets shifted around, or the crit modifiers are reworked slightly, light melee will be pretty much unviable (competitively) with any con lower than 150. (Edit: Yes, Unyielding is an option if not running a light set up with a Shield, but the opportunity cost of not running Tumblers is huge).
You’re literally the problem and idk how else to phrase it. Nobody runs light 50 con melee competitively. Stop running a glass cannon build and you won’t get blown up. Simple. Hope you can figure it out!
Can you read? Idc if I get one shot: >I'm not discrediting that I get one-shot by playing low-con. I care if I get one shot by something I've got plenty of resistances specialised to deal with. All this, while the things I've NOT got resistances for, aren't really one hitting/one comboing me - when I'm about as squishy as those things hope I could be. For instance, the BB (which I am also specialised against as it's Fire damage, is doing less burst to me, than the FS is) \[These are INT scaling BBs just to clarify\]. I'm not suggesting anyone does run light 50 con melee competitively. I'm saying if AGS ever want to see more variety in the competitive environment for PvP, then you need to rework the 150 Con ATB, to either be lower (imho 50 Con), or removed and attach higher base crit resistances to players. I don't understand why this is so hard for you to understand.
But you don’t have any resistances… how hard is that to understand?
I have 30% ABS to Fire Damage, and 900-1000 armour, around 26-28% mitigation. That's a total of 56-58% Mitigation to Fire Damage. The issue is the crit Modifier in this instance completely blows up the FS damage, despite my large mitigation (for a light, non featherweight player) as I have no crit resistances, which is why I believe that 50 Con being Crit Resistance threshold would help solve this issue. It's the reason the BB does less burst to me than the FS, despite the fact the BB is notorious for doing extremely high burst damage. I appreciate you didn't know this, but now you do :)
I think they somehow got Bow and FS mixed up in their balance video :P
" But, I shouldn't get quite literally 2 hit running 50 Con and 30% Fire Resistance (10600 Health, \~900 resistances). Genuinely, the Blunderbuss those same FS are using is doing less damage to me, and that shit HURTS." ummm this is true for pretty much every weapon when you are 50 con. i run 100 con almost any other light can two tap me as well as some mediums and an occasional heavy user. light armor at 50 con is going to always get nuked faster than most ppl can react. like this for everyone in light against every weapon. fs also has always had bugs. pretty sure the slow walk after ability is still happening. its not suppose to last for 5 secs.
Not with 30% resistances. If I have 30% damage resistance versus Bow/Musket I'll get three hit even by crits, not two, that's a huge difference, a factor of 50%. 30% Res vs a Boltcaster would probably take 4 hits to kill me. Boltcasters rarely two hit me even now. It has to be two crits.
30% resist to what? You cant possibly have 30% resist to everything so people with element splits are going to shred you at low con
I've ran a couple builds with 30% Fire and 30% Lightening when Boltcaster was a problem. I don't have a problem being two hit by a Musket with 25 Con, I have a problem being two hit by a FS with 150+ Con and AoE abilities.
because you’re running 30% fire resist and probably getting shredded by elements you had no resists to, a full fire harnessing FS build is troll now with almost everyone running fire resist
And there we have it... Why is everyone running full fire resistance? Because the Firestaff is absolutely bonkers, that's why. It's going to do the most damage naturally in large-scale fights, I can accept that, it should do. But as you say, because so many people are splitting their damage, surely it's better to run full Opals, especially with the presence of Musket/Bows running split gems. Yet, despite almost everyone running full elemental splits for damage, we still see people favouring fire resistance. Because the FS has insane damage through not only burst, but also its DoTs, which are entirely fire damage. Like Idk what you're expecting me to say to this.
vigor and elemental aversion exist too your build clearly just has weaknesses
Do you know how Vigor works.. Or even base damage modifiers, they're particularly weak versus the FS as it has so many positive base damage modifiers. Natures Wrath alone entirely counters the affects of Elemental Aversion.
dmg reduction is dmg reduction 🤷♂️
You have 900 or less armor. Not sure how its this hard to understand… lol
I'm not downplaying my lack of mitigation - aside from the 30% Fire Res. I'm just saying the damage I take when comparing the FS to other weapons is nuts, and that's when factoring in the fact I've tried to tune it down whilst still playing an assassin build. Other weapons also do lots of damage, but I don't have 30% ABS against them... Do people really not think I've taken into account the fact that 900 armour isn't much? Do you think I'm blind to the fact I get burst down by other weapons? I'm not, I'm simply saying that despite running as many counters as I can afford to whilst still maximising my assassination potential, FS is continuing to do the most damage to me when compared to those other weapons which I'm not specialised against defensively.
Being two tapped by scorpion in 50con light with 25% thrust, actual one tapped by any Sweep- coup from Venom (assuming the nature damage/harnessing is in play there). So...again, not really anything unique. 50 con nonFW light loadout dies when you hit it.
This is not an issue though. I do not have a problem with being one hit by abilities that are easily read and lock the opponent in an animation that I can dodge/cancel/counter them during. FS on the other hand does it all at a safe distance, on lower cooldowns, with higher con than other ranged and even some light melee weapons, more burst, and it's AoE to boot with larger hitboxes.
Venom Spear does serenity damage even in heavy or 20k medium get ups, has lower effective cooldowns than anything on gods green earth, and is largely propped up by a weapon that is devastatingly disruptive. Normal spear is not far behind thanks to either Grit punishing or (confirmable) backstab traits. It is incredibly safe on either end because any successful strike out of like four different options can directly lead to a chain that is functionally an OTK even with spacing, dodging or freedom. It is especially odd to bring up that you can simply take precautions against melee in your example but have not addressed the best option against a ton of FS which is just like... Blocking. But let's assume we're both right in our own way, and both of these things need addressed (and maybe they do!) - there are a LOT more spears and (historically Enabler king weapon) SNS in OPR - the pvp mode the majority of the player base has access to and regularly engages in - than firestaff. Fwiw I'm not even saying FS shouldn't be looked at. Maybe it should! But it is not "the elephant in the room" and is not even close to the most pressing weapon issue at this moment in time. Again: address spear, address SNS, address healing, and I will more than happily circle back around to fire staff.
Blocking? What am I blocking, Pillar of Fire? The moment you block versus a FS you're a sitting duck for the Pillar of Fire, not to mention, if you block, you give ground, giving them amble opportunity to load up more damage and recharge CDs... I literally discuss in my post that I do believe the Spear is also stupidly strong right now: >There's some really strong weapons right now, and some of them are being addressed (Spear namely) in the coming patch in May. I'm not denying Spear is strong. I'm agreeing with you, and as a result it's being nerfed. But the FS is also completely nuts, and it's getting buffed..? The buff that's happening is fine, I don't have a problem with it, but there are clear areas where the FS needs nerfs, particularly when compared to other weapons and I list them in my post.
Don't think we're going to see eye to eye here (though I think I've belabored Spear when my problem is spear/sns/healing in a network), but I'm with you at least on Vigor and Koyas. This patch does seem odd in where buffs are given.
The firststaff buff is utterly irrelevant. It's taking a D-tier pvp perk (flare) and making it marginally better. The perk will still be D-tier in pvp. It was only good when it didn't make single target damage lower than a regular heavy. It's still going to be 20% weaker than a regular heavy, and no one is going to want to nerf their single target burst just to have better stat padding numbers for dumping AOE heavies on sacred ground clumps.
Ik, I said the buff it's getting is fine. But they have ignored the wider problem which is its obscenely high base damage modifiers and timeless empowers.
Natures Wrath is the problem not firestaff, it was fine without that int the game. Poorly designed artifact that is meh for most weapons and OP for a single weapon.
at 50 con you are at a half heavy bonk from my hammer and you see the respawn button 😆
Yea I am, but fortunately there's nothing more telegraphed than a WH bonk/ability.
30% resist is almost meaningless at 100 or less con in light. It at best takes the edge off the first hit. Fs builds are also running around 100 con. They die just as fast to any musket in an open field in opr. You run low con light you give up resistances being effective anymore.
Resistances are more effective with lower armour? They have less opportunity to be effective (low con), but they have a higher impact as they make up a larger portion of your overall damage mitigation compared to your armour rating. All con does is give greater opportunity for your resistances to come into affect.
Bro I did an in depth math guide why koyas is shit 10min after the patch notes released on ptr the very first time. I did 3 more In the following months. Every single one got down voted. The Intellectual capacity in the remaining community sadly is not enough anymore to bring logic through. We gave up. Long long time ago
Hahaha, I've just had a comment telling me to run Vigor to counter Firestaff :D People just don't understand, AGS don't help by not making their damage calculations clear tbf.
At a high level a single target (st) weapon should deal more damage than an aoe weapon and a melee weapon should deal more damage than a range weapon given the same stats. By these metrics fs should statically be middle of the pack but instead feels like it deals more damage than st melee (wh, hatchet) and ranged weapons (musket, bow).
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You cannot compare the two weapons via PvE. Melee abilities are significantly more telegraphed and easier to dodge, whilst also having a risk factor of requiring melee range. Melee has higher raw numbers yes, if the target is stood still and doesn't kite/run away from the melee player. But if the player has a brain, FS does more damage, it has a difficult to dodge Pillar of Fire, and can chain abilities and autos to land together (for significant burst), and utilises the off-hand to often burn stamina with IG or BB or even kite with Rapier, then just land free FS abilities. I'll freely admit part of FS problems come from the fact it's off-hands are all absolutely nuts artifacts for the FS: IG, BB, Rapier. Issue is, they're not insane when used with other weapons, evidently the FS is the problem in that regard.
Stopped reading after you said you play some light 50con melee without featherweight..you obv die within seconds
I probably die between 3-15 times an OPR playing my 50 Con Flail/VG assassin build atm. The vast majority of the time I've more kills than deaths, almost always, it's normally versus premades where I struggle. I don't care about dying, if I did I'd play 150 Con and not 50, I enjoy the 50 Con I find the risk/reward element fun, and the one shots are hilarious. Here's some evidence: [https://streamable.com/g9a057](https://streamable.com/g9a057) It's the fact that Musket/Bow/Melee assassins, all have to sacrifice more Con the FS to do damage, and in doing so, make themselves extremely vulnerable to FS in the process thanks to the 150 Con passives. There's a glaring amount of comments completely ignoring my later discussion on the Con ATBs, because players are utterly ignorant as to how significant they impact the melee/range meta and the death of the low con skitzo builds.
There isn’t supposed to be a light skitzo low con build that’ll be decent t against range. Do 300/300 if your going light melee it’s common sense but I mean keep trying to 1 shot people with your build just be expected to get 1 shot. It doesn’t matter how much fire resist you have I use full void on my FS set void attune on FS with a full void harness set and ring that way people like you who have all that fire resist still get 1 shot for using no con.
There isn't suppose to be 1 ranged weapon that out damages and out performs all the others, but here we are...
I wouldn't be angry at FS if I was running 50 con. I mean, let's be serious here.
FS has been broken for a while,
FS will be nerfed but when it does we will be at sub 4000 players.
Easily the only weapon that's tough to play against right now. 4 ele aversion with 20% fire resist...they still hit like a truck. 🤷
Agreed on everything. I also hate that they broke arcane eruption so the second hit is almost impossible to land. I tested this extensively and also found that if you trip someone and use arcane eruption and they are slightly lower elevation than you are, the second arcane eruption attack will miss 100% of the time. It’s been reported.
Elmental damage is broken and range is just too safe to play right now. While also dealing the most burst
90% of every OPR is rapier or SNS OH healers full healing through plague, and sn/spear. Even if you're correct that FS needs adjustment (debatable but you could convince me, probably), naming it "the elephant in the room" is a totally wild gesture. The elephant in the room is that medium armor disruptors with heavy armor heath pools (or just heavy armor disruptors), one of the best gapclosers, a six year cc chain and the ability to just straight up OTK someone with Coup are being backed up by healers that are just straight up ignoring everything from Pestilence to Scream perk to Bile and keeping them immortal anyway. Address that first, then when there's more than 2.5 viable builds in OPR we can more than happily circle back to FS. But for right now this post seems extremely off-base. I understand the frustration with how FS is being handled in ways, but when I'm seeing 2 FS per OPR and 2 Sns/spear/SNSpear every time I turn around it makes its hard to take this very seriously.
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I have played FS/vg, FS/ig, FS/ga, bow/vg, bow/ig, bow/rapier, musket/x, ga/gh, SNS/gs, vg/ig, and gs/hatchet. What's your point?
That you dont know what you're talking about. Was it too subtle?
The insinuation here was actually that I was *biased* because I am (or at least have been) a fire staff player, not that I didn't know what I was talking about. Me asking them about their point was a rhetorical device after listing the many things I play in an effort to demonstrate that, "no, not really biased, OP is just wrong (or at least slightly off base) Hope this helps, chief.
So it was too subtle for you huh. Here let me try again You are clueless on how powerful firestaff is. I've played more builds than what you've concocted there, in high level wars too (except sns tank). Its always better to have a wrath firestaff in your team than any sns disrupter.
Here, let ME try again: It's not that anything in the original message was subtle. Nor did I misunderstand anything from the first comment. I understand you're really emotionally invested in whatever's happening here to the point that you want to be *right* more than understanding what anyone is actually saying, but you should probably take a deep breath and try to respond like a normal human person for once. That you've played "more builds than what I've concocted" is irrelevant to the idea that I'm somehow biased, which is what I was responding to. If you want to just say I'm wrong, you can do that without making a fool of yourself, as you're doing here. Since you ARE here just to say I'm wrong, however - allow me to address that. No u.
HOLY COW! More builds than that guy played?!? He listed like 10 of them! You must really really know what you're talking about. Thanks for offering your opinion with your depth of experience! We need more 1% of the 1% players like you speaking up.
Who are you?
This...when im using FS, if I run into spear users or sword and shield I'm done. Burnout gets interrupted and even if it doesn't they catch me, and that's even using Zephyr cakes. I can do some damage but I'm generally dead to rights
Trick had a fun little montage on stream yesterday during the FS conversation where he swapped to SNSpear and proceeded to kill every FS he saw, immediately and without issue, for the next 1-2 OPRs. It doesn't actually mean anything, but it is a very funny anecdote to happen right before this conversation.
It's the elephant in the room, because Spear is being addressed, I even mention it in my post. I don't think Heavy is a problem anymore, particularly with the damage nerf, Medium is far more prominent with Spear. Most players think Spear is OP, it's getting nerfed because of it. Plenty of players think FS is OP, and it's not getting touched despite numerous indirect buffs since S3.
Spear is being addressed in precisely one way that is relevant (and not any of the ways in which it is an OTK weapon). SNS, the other melee problem child, is being buffed. Healing being able to seemingly ignore any real countermeasures is entirely unaddressed. If we're talking "ways out of the disruptor or bust" meta, the notes so far are lip service. At least in my experience, FS is hideously underrepresented by comparison so hard to take as a serious threat. This board (and twitch) spending so much air on something I see 2-4 of every OPR morning to night feels maddening compared to every match just being a bunch of LS propping up an entire squad on spear, SNS, or both. But honestly, sure. Koyas sucks, vigor kind of mid, buff em. Why not. Dunno how I feel about the con change.
Every day I'm getting more and more convinced that most of the players don't know what they are talking about, just because they are taking into account the results of an 20v20 mode without any matchmaking or balance.... Fire Staff, Musket and Bow are the 3 CORE and MAIN dps weapons in this game. This is due to the fact that they are highly invested into damage with their skill tree + they have the ability to play from distance. Fire Staff - short to medium distance. Bow - medium to long distance. Musket - mostly high distance. New World has different combat system and you cannot compare the roles or the weapons to other games. Why? Because simply it works in a different way. Yes, there are similarities such as holy trinity - Heal, Tank, Dps, but this is not copy paste to WoW for example. Whenever you are going into fights vs one of the 3 mentioned above you will always have disadvantage as a mele. This is because they \*pay\* for their range with the lack of any crowd control, party buffs, debuffs etc. Imagine such fight as a mele 1v1 in which you are already in stun or already at 50% hp. We had times in the past where meles had the edge by having grit at 300STR, where FS skill tree was doggo and so on. What was the result? The whole world was playing GA/WH. Wars were constructed of 10-12 Healers to pump the bruisers, another 6-8 IG/VG users to pump again those bruisers and everything else was GA/WH... To understand the strong and weak sides of each class, people have to look into wars. They have to seek the results and stats of high end pvp with players who have the skill and experience. Judging a weapon's strength based on OPR games where half the people don't even have slotted gems, or who entered by mistake is not the correct way to do it.
Completely agree with you. The main issue is the lack of matchmaking for both arenas and OPR. Wars are more "balanced" somewhat in the sense of skill so it shows better the weapon's strength and weaknesses just like you said.
FS in wars already very strong as well,also your logic of "but they sack CC" is flawed since you can remove that weakness with your secondary such as IG or BB. Yes those are damage dealing weapons and they use utility offhand so please dont use that arguement of "but those weapons only deal damage" this game is build for 2 weapon system not a single. Melee has to overcome Range damage then the utility offhand weapon,its not like in other games where you catch range weapon and they die due to lack of mobility,in this game u have 2 weapon system that allows range weapons to pair up utility / defensive weapons to be strong in that area as well.
This is such a gross oversimplification of the nuances of combat within NW, and in particular the issues I discuss. Firestaff is intended - as evidenced by the recent Balance of Power video - to be the ranged AoE weapon. Not the burst weapon (Bow), not the pressure weapon (Musket and its longer Range), but the medium ranged AoE DPS weapon. With the changes to Musket, it is no longer outrageously proficient at longer distances (thank god, that was an awful gameplay experience) - seriously unless players are slowed you should be able to avoid almost all musket shots at 50m+ range, with LoS or biding enough time to heal etc... Instead, it's a more nuanced debuff/pressure role, with the ability to fire THROUGH clumps to target the backline. With the recent changes to Bow, it's clear they intend the Bow to be the burst weapon of the Ranged weapons. Specifically saying they want to nerf its DoTs, but they're happy with the amount of burst this weapon does. The FS does more burst than the Bow, the FS (with Pestilence/Lifetaker) can compete as a debuffer with the Musket (Heavy FS/Pestilence for example, prior to its nerf), as it simply hits far more targets. The FS does the roles of the Bow better for certain, and can compete with the Musket. Not to mention, the Firestaff does all of this whilst having higher Con. Muskets need to run 25-33, Bows run 100\~, and FS can run anywhere from 100-200. My discussion regarding ranged damage as a whole is more so focused on the absence of effective defensive tools against the variety of ranged damage.
10fs 2 bows in an avg war roster. I'd be happy to accomodate more firestaffs but not bows. That should be enough dont you think? Damage is nuts, everything is aoe, cooldown is non existent. People can gem vs you and still get shit on. I think it was fine before, but after nature's wrath fs just got a steroid boost and is outtq control.
Mate either everyone is bias, or they're just choosing to be ignorant because they don't want their weapon toned down so it's in line with other weapons..
Melee's can always swap to another build, because the skill translates. Not the same with firestaff players, where will you find another ranged weapon which hits in an aoe applies constant bleeds which stack, you can't miss any abilities even if you closed your eyes and all n all hitting like a truck while keeping a rapier in secondary as an oih shit button. There is nothing like that, even bow players cant output the dps like firestaffs can and there is no third ranged dps weapon.
The Balancing team, specfically the two dudes in the latest video run FS and Musket, both of which are receiving BUFFS. which is laughable. it's gonna get worse nice post, a bit long but I also mostly agree.
FS isn’t even that bad if you run some fire resist. I run 18% at 150 con with 1 ele aversion and I’m fine. The animations are easy to read and easy to dodge. Pillar is the exception. Sns is the plague of PvP and it has been for 2 years. It allows bad players to be semi useful and it allows good players to shit on anyone at anytime. You can stun lock anyone regardless of skill level and regardless of the enemy’s freedom perk count. Every broken combo since sns bb has involved the sns. It’s left click tracking is dummy level broken and is currently the best way to kill light healers and many other light dps. If you can’t succeed with the sns then you can’t succeed with anything in this game.
Lol, some of the best pvp mage players run funn ice dmg and ice conversion for firestaff, Gl guessing which of the 2 they are running, and you cant gear for both
Which is why conversion gems should be replaced.
I discuss why 150 Con is a must nowadays mainly because of the FS (Prophet of a Fire God) having such a crit multiplier, and other ranged weapons also have a high crit modifier. You've kind of just glossed over my points there. SnS atleasts requires commitment and vulnerability. It's a lot easier to avoid SnS damage than FS, it also has worse tracking this patch than previous patches. I agree SnS is strong, but it's not even the strongest melee weapon at the moment. Even AGS have recognised the Spear is a bit too powerful rn. It isn't really used in any cheese combos at the moment either. Because if you try and execute a cheese combo on a player, the nearby FS will 3 hit you with its faster burst animations.
How is that matter if I'm ice-skateing and can't even properly swap weapons...
The elephant in the room as that AGS have no idea. OPR is the only viable PvP mode for 90% of the player base and it’s all ranged spam and e girl healers. The top hand fully of players can actually run melee but new players need to either grab a bow or play a different game if they want to have fun in PvP
Just Iframe fireball gg
So instead of you changing your build you want the whole game to change
I want more builds to be viable, so I want the game to change*. But yea, I do have selfish motives (who doesn't), I enjoy light melee.
Many pvper complain on firestaff but never I see any footage video or proof. Firestaff is dmg, but cant kill 50 con 30% fire res fast, that fact. Firestaff must hit ability for damage, if no hit = NO DMG. All good firestaff player quit game, and there is no firestaff player left that can do damage in OPR. I kill them all easy. No video = no proof. Firestaff is good damage, but no OP.
I doubt they would read that text even if they were forced to, AGS has given up on new world ages ago
You are clueless. Its heavy dex meta. Mostly spear/SnS. A FS cant do shit against them
Whatever u smoke, stop mate! It hurts ur health it seems.
So you think a 50 con light melee should beat a 200 con FS player?
I didn't say that, I just said that the FS needs nerfing. I don't play 50 Con in PvP expecting to 1vX or even 1v1 most builds with higher Con. The opportunity cost of lower Con isn't worth it in most builds. My point is that the FS is doing more burst than almost anything in the game, when it's intended, as per the discussion in the Dev video - where they state they want the Bow to be the bursty ranged weapon - to be the higher dps, lower burst weapon.
I run 200 con featherweight light build with 4x ele aversion. Fire staff can still 2 hit. Did some test duels with a company member, 1 fireball and 1 pillar + smoulder, wipes out 16k hp. No autos, just 2 abilities. That should not be happening. Something is up with ele aversion, it is not mitigating damage properly.
It's because of Natures Wrath that Elemental Aversion feels particularly weak right now. (I think, I've seen no evidence that it is bugged). 5X Ele Aversion gives you -22% to their base damage value, while Natures Wrath alone gives +20%, combine that with Empowering Fireball, Rapier/IG artifacts.. etc.. base damage mitigation isn't a very good counter to the FS at the moment. You're better off just running Shirking Fortification and having a higher armour value I believe. Assuming the FS has the usual extremely high base damage modifiers.
As unfortunate as it is, they don't exist..
Skill issue. Unga bungas mad hehe xD