Staves. The reason no one uses them in HC/SC by the majority and how to make them viable.

Currently, dual wielding 2 wands/maces gives a way higher dps than a staff, and you can put your 6 link in your chest armor. If you choose to use 1 wand then you get a lot of tankyness with only 75% of the staff potential in terms of raw stats.

Pro
- able to have a double 6 link
- Able to roll +2-3 levels to an elemental type of spell.

Con
- It costs 10-30 exalt to have a 6 link staff with decent/good rolls
- 6 link armors are expensive, anywhere from 5-10 exalt with decent rolls/good rolls.
If you have a 6 link staff but not a 6 link armor, then what is the point of the staff? You can buy a good 6 link armor and gg double wands/scepters and have more dps and be tankier for the same price.


My suggestions are this: Make staves a little more like Jewels, once you've rolled a caster mod, you can't roll the attack version of that mod.

EG - If you get 100% spell damage, you can't get Increased Physical damage. If you get #added fire damage, you can't get #added physical damage but you can get attack speed.

Also buff all the caster mods by 5-10% or more to encourage using a staff and not a shield, i seriously haven't seen any spell casters that use a staff in HC - some people would accept the trade-off if they actually gained more damage with a staff than with their wand.

Actually +3 is used a lot. Right now due to how well it scales mainly for Poison Arrow and Explosive Arrow but it works similar for Spells. SRS builds will always use it and if it wouldn't be for some incredible strong Unique Staves like Sire of Shards or Pledge of Hands that are quite cheap compared to well rolled rare staves they would be used as well. Getting a +3 basically means the possibility of level 28 spells, while on a Chest you are limited to 25 if it is corrupted and +1 and levels are the major thing for spells.

Defenses suck regardless if you are using Dual Wands or a Staff. In terms of DPS Staffs technically always beat 1h or 2h maces and are fairly similar to dualwield sceptres, but there aren't really good mods for them, while Staffs get access to Echarge on crit which is a nice benefit and they have crit making them a lot better than maces and rolling one staff vs. 2 sceptres is a lot easier. The only issue is that you could just use one perfect sceptre and Deaths Hand since Ice Crash and I think Groundslam as well don't use the offhand.

In general staffs are for richer people although you only have to roll one, not two you only really benefit from them if they are highly linked and they have to be better than the rather cheap unique options.

"

ancine wrote:

My suggestions are this: Make staves a little more like Jewels, once you've rolled a caster mod, you can't roll the attack version of that mod.

I like that suggestion, and it wouldn't raise the overall power of staves, it would just make average staves a bit cheaper & easier to find. Same could be said of other weapon types that share caster and attacker affixes, too.

I'm pritty happy using my 5l +3 Fire Staff on my SRS instead of 2 Scepters.

The trade off is already there.

A staff is a tool of destruction, while a dual wield option is a tool of finesse and speed.

staff

- higher base damage (for spells and attacks, for attacks partially because of crit scaling option)
- lowish block

duel wield

- more speed (duel wield inherent bonus/ double cast speed roll for casters)
- more block

The only thing that might need to be worked on is the caster staff crit based options, which might be allowed to have a higher roll on staffs.

But +3 gem levels is a serious punch when it comes to spells.

Peace,

-Boem-

Dear GGG,

Fuck apples. Moar liek oranges plox.

Sincerely,
OP

Staves/2hdrs OP. How do you triple curse on hit with two 1hdrs? Gonna have awfully low DPS with main spell in a 4L helm or something.

How do you get a 7L or +3 with two 1 hdrs...PoH, SRS staves, etc?

I seriously doubt I'll play witches without a staff again unless CoC ofc where dagger or wand dominates..

Here was my gear in Tempest before last rip @83. Ice nova in staff and triple curse in chest on lightning warp. Enfeeble + frost bite + warlords mark for leech and endurance charge so I played it in HC at least