Staff Attack Chain

You all realize that there's always a "high water mark" somewhere...and it's usually a LONG time before that line gets passed again...in essence...it takes a flood to raise the line again.

In short, what I am saying is TW is the "high water mark" right now...that was likely the intention. It will also likely be a long time before anything comes around that is anywhere near passing it. Get used to it...remember this word - BALANCE.

There's nothing wrong with a set that has potential to do 220-240 DPS with lots of added tools that other sets don't have...so...complain about "it's not strong enough...make it like TW!!" all you want...you'll only bring in a nerf bat faster.

When they balance things, there is not usually any creep...what happens is...the outliers come closer to center. Think carefully about what you are wishing for, because you might get it in a form different from what you wanted.

-E- Let me cite previous examples...

Energy Melee
Regen (x10)
Performance Shifter SBE
Fury (I am talking about the mechanic not the ATO)
Fire Aura (Fiery Embrace)

I am certain there are many that do not even come to my mind at the moment.

The funny thing is; I said the very same thing when someone said what I said to me. I'm trying to gauge what OTHER people think, and apparently the opinion that "Shield is fine, shut up" is more dominant.

Although it does have lower DDR and Base Defense Values than it really needed, it use to be a lot worse if memory serves well enough. Either way, you'll find plenty of people saying the Hami-O Exploit fix 'ruined' Shield Defense.

<--- Doesn't play Shield Defense. Thinks it looks a little too dorky with non-weapon sets, and doesn't like any of the weapon sets that can use it enough to... use it.


TL;DR - I think Shield Defense is fine, but the scant resistances and +MAX HP aren't as alluring for the weakened DDR and base defense values, since Energy Aura got buffed. It makes the closed-beta Shield Defense flaws that got somewhat adjusted, a lot more obvious in design.

Shield is fine...seriously...if you want DDR, then run ageless radial as your recharge tool, take musculature alpha and slot your primary for acc/dmg and def...holes...filled.

More to the point, I didn't respond to your bating (which you seem to be a master at) before for a couple reasons:

1) I don't really care if you believe me.

2) I have better things to do with my time than argue with an internet bully.

You've earned a spot on my ignore list right next to Fire Minded and City Life, which should give anyone who remembers them a good idea how worthless I consider your opinion.

Have a nice day.

And more on topic:

After having played Staff Fighting for a little while, I haven't found it especially weak. I'm defeating things in a reasonable time span, and te defense boost from Guarded Spin helps a bit with my survivability.

I'm playing it on a DA/Staff Tanker, and I've set my difficulty to x4 at level 17 while soloing, and doing just fine with it. I have only done that one time before and done just as well, with a Claws/Fire brute. My personal experience here is telling me that Staff Fighting isn't as underpowered as some people are claiming.

Maybe it lags behind a bit in ST DPS in the late game, but its AoE output is enough to make up for that in my opinion.

Comparing a set to sets that are brokenly overpowered and saying they suck when they don't perform the same isn't a good metric of how good a set is.

Some sets do perform better, I'm not arguing that point. But what's being ignored is that Staff Fighting can do things those other sets can't. It's the only set I know of that alleviates endurance problems for sets like Dark Armor using only SOs. It's also the only set in existence that can increase your damage resistance as well as defense (which you can do consistently with enough recharge).

Using just SOs, Staff Fighting doesn't need to slot any end reduction in its powers at all, something only certain combinations can say (Regen and Willpower coming to mind with other sets). It doesn't matter what you pair it with in Staff Fighting's case. Since you don't have to slot for end reduction, you can slot another recharge reduction in your powers instead, which will increase your recharge in those powers more than Form of the Mind will. And since you're attacking faster, you should be dealing more damage in the long run than Form of the Body's damage buff will achieve.

Slotted with just SOs (which, believe it or not, the game is still balanced around), Staff Fighting's utility powers actually DO make up for dealing less damage than the best performing sets. Saying it sucks at the absolute bleeding edge of performance isn't accurately representing the majority of the people's experience playing it, because 90% of the people playing it are not going to reach that level of performance in the first place.