Staves - the best 2-handed weapons?

Hi all,

I am currently planning my melee build for Legion (what a surprise, I know) and like the idea of a slow but heavy hitting huge weapon.

But now I noticed that staves are the only 2-handed weapons that can block (~20%+), which is significant free damage mitigation!
So my question: Do other 2-handed weapons somehow make up for that lack of defence (offensively or defensively)? Or are staves actually the "best" 2-handed weapons (if they allow you to use your chosen skill)?

P.s.: This is not even considering that staves are the only weapons that get free (endurance) charge generation from the passive tree.

Each weapon type has it's own thing going for it. Staves have block, swords have accuracy, maces have stun modifiers, and so on (I'm only mentioning their implicit affix as many of these mods can be rolled on other weapons).

Add on top of that all of the passives the benefit specific weapons. Staves for example have passives that increases their block and crit chance/multiplier. Swords get passives that increase their overall damage and some even give them extra weapon range. Maces have passives that increase the AoE of attacks.

These are just some examples. It really just depends on what you want from your weapon. So if you feel like the extra block chance from staves will suit your build idea, then by all means go for it.

Tidebreaker (mace) gets free endurance charge generation.

You'll find exceptions to just about any rule you come up with. Nothing wrong with staves as melee weapons and they've even split them up into melee/caster bases now.

two handed melee weapons have really shitty mods for shaper/elder bases. so your best bet is to use unique weapons.

there are a couple unique staves that are decent, but in the unique category i'd say staves fall behind

My main problem with staves is that my go to melee classes (Duelist, Marauder) have to travel a long way just to get to the good staff nodes.

Another thing is that, to benefit fully from the inbuilt block chance, you have to take a loooot of extra block nodes, dampening your damage and raw life.

Staves also are hard to craft, atleast right now.

All in all its just much more investment for me to build a competitive melee staff build. Swords and axes just feel better on the passive tree.

Thanks for the insights so far.

So, you would not say that 18% block is generally more valuable than 40% increased accuracy (2-h swords) or nothing to 50% increased crit chance (2-h axes) or 30% increased stun duration (2-h maces)?

My feeling from the last seasons as caster was that survival>all in poe, and the top unique 2-h weapons of all classes seem to be more or less similar in pdps (though, of course, they all have their special effects, which makes it difficult to compare them; but staves always have that enticing block chance...).

2h weapons suffer a great deal from overkill, which is really a much larger problem than you might think. You hit slow & hard so a substantial amount of your damage goes to waste.

Staff clusters focus primarily on crit, block, and flat damage, kind of making that problem worse than it needs to be. Also, some of the better performing skills don't work with staves.

Don't get me wrong, staff in the templar area is something I've been messing with since vaal oversoul was the end of the game content. It's fun. You should try it. But don't trick yourself into saying it's "the best" - I really don't think it's very competitive. Block is nice, and the paper dps is quite good, but overkill, clunky slow attacks, also the limited selection of skills.

Staves focus heavily on block and crit (they have higher base crit chance than almost all other two handed weapons), but offset that with having only very few increases to their actual damage on the skill tree. Accuracy can also be somewhat lackluster with them.

Ah, okay. So other weapons get more dmg and accuracy increases, that is something I was not aware of. But then again, as 鬼殺し pointed out, at least the accuracy issue seems to haven been fixed with the new skill tree.

Just to put this post in the correct context:
I don't really want to use a staff; I prefer the idea of maces or axes. The skill I want to use is Earthquake, so the limited selection of skills and the slowness of attacks is not an issue.

I just looked at the weapons, saw block on staves, and thought: "Wow, staves seem to be far better than axes and maces". But if block is not that valuable and the other weapons make up for that with more damage, then axes and maces are better?

Or are, in the end, all of them similar, just with staves being more defensive while the others have slightly more damage? Or is it significantly more damage?

"

鬼殺し wrote:

*mumble mumble staff notables might be different very soon as might the basic nature of weapon attacks mumble mumble*

While this is true, the change is pretty minor. You can see it on the skill tree under game -> passive skill tree.

Blunt trauma moved next to avatar of fire, so it's actually a low travel wheel, but it still has knockback. I wonder if GGG realizes that melee players avoid getting knockback, because having to travel less is more important than taking less damage. People didn't avoid blunt trauma *just* because it took 2 travel nodes, they avoided it because it had knockback on crit.

One with the river. OK, this one is good. But it's a minor improvement, merely a case of taking one notable instead of another for an extra 4% damage or something.


Counterweight / Whirling Barrier have one less travel node, great.

Steelwood, this one is interesting but it does not address the main problem with staves in general: overkill. (in other words, they are too slow)

In summary there's a very small amount of accuracy added to the staff wheels, but still the main focuses are crit and flat increased dmg, and crit on 2handers has previously only been a meaningful stat for boss fights. In Legion it will probably matter for rares & monoliths, but will it be enough? We will see.

I still really enjoy my staff builds, but this just doesn't seem like much of a change to make them actually competitive. But that will only matter depending on who you are and what your objectives are.