So Staff, what do you think

I personally like Titan Weapons more, but staff, unlike TW, starts off fun and stays fun. Anyone who has rolled a TW character knows how grueling it is at first.

Has anyone posted the staff models yet? I can't find them anywhere.

I'm particularly interested in the tech model, which someone said looks like an energy spear.

Form of the Soul(?) is great for early level play. The endurance discount lets you run a lot of toggles without any problems. My staff/elec brute's been on cruise control up to 23 so far.

Maybe someone can explain this to me. I keep seeing people saying things like "not top tier" and "mediocre" when talking about Staff Fighting. And I totally understand that Staff is not the best set ever, and I am not saying it should be considered among this "top tier." My question is: How can every set made end up in the Top Tier and then be complained about if it isn't?

If every set made from here on out was as good as or better than what we already have, then wouldn't (from a numbers perspective) it be completely pointless to continue to play older sets? By virtue of balance isn't it far better that the Devs shoot for mediocre and middle-of-the-road for every set they make to help avoid outliers?

My experience at 50, not alpha'd yet, running 54x08 malta as well as the Cimmy wall is that the AOE is not all that and a bag of chips on a stalker.

It's nice, but the DOT nature of the AOEs has a lot of mobs running away (no inherent taunt, and the DOT nature gives them time to run) ... also (need to see mids to confirm) the damage of GS and EotS seems lower than comparable AOEs in other sets ... but this last could be observer error. Wish MIDS was out. A cursory look at City of Data for Brutes and Stalks seems to confirm this though.

I really think Sky Splitter should be a narrow cone like Shatter than can hit a few targets. EotS damage feels like it should be higher given the DOT nature and extremely long everybody-was-breakdance-fighting animation.

Several sets probably have better AOE including War Mace, Super Strength, StJ (*maybe), TW, and DB.

Shrug.

My overall impression of staff so far has been positive. It is a blast in the lower levels and looks to have a nice mix of AoE and single target attacks. I am also finding the various staff mastery forms a lot more useful than everyone was predicting. As blueruckus noted, even the secondaries that have good end management don't always get them very early and any melee build is going to be tight on slots until the early to late 30's in most cases, which means you might not be able to slot up all the end reduction or recharge you want, so being able to run form of the mind or soul for that extra recharge/end reduction is VERY useful pre 30 or so.

That said, I do think there is some definite merit to the criticisms of the set. The developers are STILL overestimating how valuable flexibility is in this game - while the staff mastery forms don't get shorted quite as much as dual pistols did in exchanging aim for swap ammo, you still give up a lot. In a classic MMORPG like WoW, EQ or even the new SWTOR, flexibility in an individual character is VERY usefull, especially in end game when you might only have 1-2 characters who are equipped or specced for raiding. In CoX where almost everyone has multiple alts and generally doesn't mind swapping characters to fill out gaps in a trial league flexibility in a single character isn't nearly as valuable.

One thing to keep in mind is that all 3 staff mastery forms sacrifice the to hit bonus that that build up and all its other replacements (follow up, blinding feint, soul drain) get. In exchange you get bonuses that, while none of them suck, are not really all that stellar either. Form of the body, the one everyone seems to think is the best form only gives you an 18% damage bonus at tier 3 - and you are NOT going to have that up all the time, as it drops off between fights, takes 3 attacks to build up and is going to be lost everytime you use a finisher. I suspect you are going to be averaging 10%-12% damage bonus at best and thats on a scrapper - stalkers, brutes and tanks get a lot less benefit. While it sounds good, I don't think it quite make up for the loss of the to hit boost and burst damage from build up (and doesn't even begin to compare to soul drain, follow up or blinding feint).

I think the form of the mind numbers are also a bit on the low side, although thats a lot harder to judge with recharge. The only form that seems to me to really give good return is form of the soul and that is mostly due to the difficulty of getting global end reduction prior to incarnate powers. I think at least the body and mind forms could use a boost - either slightly higher numbers in the current bonuses, or possibly a small to hit bonus that stacks up along with the damage/recharge bonuses. 2%-3% to hit per stack would be a nice extra that would not be overpowered and would be better balanced against build up, soul drain, etc.

I also agree that the top tier attacks are a bit on the weak side - serpents reach is ok, while its not as great as claws focus its a decent step above KM's focused burst, both of which are comparable attacks. However sky splitter is pretty sad for a 'final' attack - it has far to low damage for the long activation time and bumping up the recharge from 15s to 18s-20s with an appropriate bump to the damage would round out the single target attacks a bit better. All the other single target attacks in the set are very fast recharging (3s, 6s and 9s) so one slower recharging, harder hitting attack would round it out nicely.

My conclusion is that I love the set's concept and execution (and have already bought it on 2 accounts and have rolled up 3 characters that I am levelling up now) and while I have no problem with middle of the road sets, the set could have easily been a little better in single target damage and gotten a bit more from the forms without really overpowering the set or continuing the 'power creep' that everyone is talking about.

First impressions: absolutely awful sound effects.

Sounds like I'm banging a trash can inside a giant whale.

Another nice perk on this set is having access to several -RES proc'able attacks early on. Mercurial Blow accepts Achilles Proc and Guarded Spin/Eye of the Storm take Fury of the Gladiator. You can be debuffing with all of this by level 10 on Scrap/Brute.