Staff Caster suggestions

[Joanna]

Originally Posted by xaivia

This thread is pretty stupid but the one tiny thing that would be good would be if ebone staff gave STR instead of MST or, infact, staves in general.

That's actually makes a lots of sense .
+1 for blending Str into staves

[Khettry]

Originally Posted by Huggles

The staff had about 80% as much DPS as the full melee build.

Curious which staff it was.

Honestly, my problem with staff is the same it's always been with staff. DPS is fine, whether you melee with it or not. It's the survivability that sucks.

With accuracy staff and even Raidens (when throwing str in), all your stats are stretched thin trying to accommodate defensive enough distributions to last long without sacrificing the ability to keep casting. At that point, you're trying to add to every stat except PST, PRE, and DEX. Not enough to take the full brunt of the negs you need for stoning, unless you're also pumping them with stat points.

Maybe a skill like a manergy shield would be helpful. Eats 1 manergy for every 5 dmg is negates, up to 50% of actual hits? Then we'd still be fighting to keep manergy in reserve and struggle to get all stats where they're best. I dunno, it's a thought.

[NoRemorse]

Originally Posted by Khettry

Curious which staff it was.

Honestly, my problem with staff is the same it's always been with staff. DPS is fine, whether you melee with it or not. It's the survivability that sucks.

With accuracy staff and even Raidens (when throwing str in), all your stats are stretched thin trying to accommodate defensive enough distributions to last long without sacrificing the ability to keep casting. At that point, you're trying to add to every stat except PST, PRE, and DEX. Not enough to take the full brunt of the negs you need for stoning, unless you're also pumping them with stat points.

Maybe a skill like a manergy shield would be helpful. Eats 1 manergy for every 5 dmg is negates, up to 50% of actual hits? Then we'd still be fighting to keep manergy in reserve and struggle to get all stats where they're best. I dunno, it's a thought.

seeing where i am and where tanks are around my level , i can take a lot more as staff caster than most tanks around my level can , your survivability issues are on you , think outside the box

[Tsutsu]

Originally Posted by Khettry

Curious which staff it was.

Honestly, my problem with staff is the same it's always been with staff. DPS is fine, whether you melee with it or not. It's the survivability that sucks.

With accuracy staff and even Raidens (when throwing str in), all your stats are stretched thin trying to accommodate defensive enough distributions to last long without sacrificing the ability to keep casting. At that point, you're trying to add to every stat except PST, PRE, and DEX. Not enough to take the full brunt of the negs you need for stoning, unless you're also pumping them with stat points.

Maybe a skill like a manergy shield would be helpful. Eats 1 manergy for every 5 dmg is negates, up to 50% of actual hits? Then we'd still be fighting to keep manergy in reserve and struggle to get all stats where they're best. I dunno, it's a thought.

That's an issue with pretty much every build out there lol

[Huggles]

It was the Staff of the Masquerade.

I'll break it down specifically for your situation (a Warlock/Adventurer? on a pilgrimage).

Rune Set 1: Incantation/Quicksteel/Manatic/Euphoric/Clarifying/any
Rune Set 2: Pain/Crit/Assurance/Mana Theft/Quicksteel/Wise

The first rune set is what you put on as soon as a fight ends/while you exit and re-enter. This gives you a bit more mana regen in between fights, which should be enough to top you off; you don't need to always have full mana- just at the start of a fight.

The second set is for as soon as you enter combat (even before the combat screen loads) to maximise your firepower.

Auras/Sleight of Hand Gem: Flamecall 9, Melee Haste, Lavaburst R20

Even without Deft Recovery, you'll easily draw faster than you can cast to replace your gems, or the boss will be dead before you're running out.

Pets: 2x Timmies when you have no regen is not a very good idea. You're better off running Stalkers and/or Badgers. Since you have no other source of Vamp, you'll need at least one Stalker, so 1 Stalker 1 Badger. I'm assuming you have a decent bank and can afford to modify your build. If not and you're just worried about survivability, pick up a Stalker and have a nice day.

Potion: Pilgrim pot

If you use Masq and DS BP with Melee Haste 5, Quicksteel 6, and a Tier 1 Badger, your delay is 22.97, or 3.28 seconds. Assuming an accuracy of 70% and using the 66% rule, your average melee swing would deal

40.33-415.147
58.15% melee crit chance for triple damage, 2.163 multiplier
1210 damage
I'll just round quadrakill off at 2.5%. Average iterations per swing is 1.275.

1210 damage every 3.28 seconds, with the first 1210 damage being at 0 seconds. That's 369 per second. Hit chance staff's damage is 591.66 every 2.73 seconds. That's 217 per second. The difference is 152 DPS. That means you'll need to be making that up on the casting end.

You fire 1.1 gems every 1.5 seconds (with DS BP; 1.199 every 1.5 seconds with DT). That's .73 gems per second. That means that in order for the hit chance staff to be worth it, you need to be getting an increase of 208 per gem.

It really depends on what your average hit is and what your accuracy is. The lower your current accuracy, the more an accuracy item benefits you. The lower your average gem hit, the less that staff helps. Prior to the 17% hit chance staff, Masq was a no-brainer.

If you decide to keep your DT BP over a DS BP, your miss out on the 11% extra damage in exchange for 1.199 gems per cast instead of 1.1, which is 9% more DPS, as well as losing out on melee damage from the BP as well. The advantage of the DT is that you get bigger burst damage which, especially for fights which are shorter on average, could save you a lot of time.

Anyhow, as I said earlier, if you're just looking for surviving, a Stalker is plenty.

[Baewi]

Omg nibbles told him how to win at nod

Ooh ooh me next! Me next! Tell me how to win nod too!

[Nemesiss]

heal gems do wonders for survival

[flipynifty]

Originally Posted by Nemesiss

heal gems do wonders for survival

not when a dcdotter can outcast you, taking you from full hp to dead with a shaft even when theyre nearly dead.

[Nemesiss]

for pve, least was where the topic seemed to go. far as shaft thats everybody screwed

[flipynifty]

yup shaft needs nerf for sure.

pve staff is fine imo specially with arc. my thing about staves is being outcast by a dcdotter simply due to shaft being broken