My impression of Staff Fighting (numerical and otherwise)

This will be long, feel free to skip to the good parts, highlighted in Big Text.

There seem to be a few debates going on in various places over staff fighting. I've begun playing the set, and I have some experience with number crunching, and I'd like to share my feedback.

First off, the numbers. Before I begin, I'd like to clarify that I am playing the set on my newly minted Stalker, Sandformer (Staff/Dark Armor), and stalkers will likely see the best DPS from the set. However, this shouldn't skew things too heavily.

Anyway, let's me get one thing over with quickly: Staff is below average in single target DPS. The lone exceptions are Stalkers, and they still are not going to top the Stalker charts. I'm not saying this to discourage people, just to let the knowledge

How do I know it has low DPS? Simple: I calculated it. This isn't to say that I magically conjured up every attack chain in existence. Instead, I did something slightly simpler, in that I looking at the best two unique powers from each set. The simple fact is that the early attacks for each set are roughly similar, so the the difference between sets is largely from the powers later in the build. I also factored in damage enhancements, damage buffs, and recharge.

I'll save the numbers for a later time, but let's just say that scrapper, brute, and tanker Staff will be around the area of electric melee, above Spines but below most other powersets. This is compounded by other sets having better places to slot -res procs.

Skip to here to read positive stuff

There are positives about staff fighting. For one, the set is aesthetically pleasing, and the animations seem to be more polished than previous sets (specifically TW, whose powers were simply mistimed with respect to their animations). Particularly, I found that simply using a basic staff I could make a "sand staff", which complimented my character perfectly (using stone, plus sand colored waterfall, dark armor turned sand colored, and the staff matches well).

In addition, I found the set to be adequate in damage on my Stalker. This isn't surprising, because Stalkers have the thing Staff lacks: a hard hitter with low animation time. Unfortunately, Sky Splitter isn't even that great, with a DS-animation ratio of about 1:1. In contrast, a good ratio for a set's best power is generally greater than 1.2, and in extreme cases greater than 1.5. For comparison, most T1 and T2 attacks are slightly below 1:1.

That said, my theoretical calculations show that in absolutely ideal situations, a Staff stalker could reach over 350 dps (using the PS-SR-AS-SS chain). This isn't mindblowing for stalkers after the change, but is still a good standard. That also didn't count for pets, Assault hybrid, or stuff not currently in the game, or the damage buff from using buildup whenever recharged. I'd expect scrappers and brutes to max at around 230-240 (higher with procs), and tankers around 190ish.

However, damage isn't where Staff excels. Instead, Staff should be viewed as a defensive set in the high levels, and a versatility set in the low levels. While leveling, non-Stalkers will find the forms very useful, specifically Form of Soul, which will make smooth leveling considerably by making endurance manageable. This by itself will make it better than Street Fighting and Titan Weapons for those who do not plan on going past 50, as both of those "OP" sets are considerably bad on the end bar before they are maxed out.

The build I have planned for my Stalker is great (which is the same build I used to calculate the above DPS number), and I chose Staff over other powersets because of its unique abilities, specifically Sky Splitter's +resistance. My numbers for the build are as follows:

S/L res: 67.2%
F/C res: 54.7
N res: 75%
E res: 32.1%
P res: 65%

All of which are just "nice". However, the kicker is what I get when I use Shadow Meld:

Melee def: 59.1%
Ranged def: 70.6%
AoE def: 59.8%

And combine that with 167.5% recharge before Ageless, an endurance sustainable attack chain, good slotting on Dark Regeneration, -kb procs, and the set is simply the best possible Stalker for me, because it wouldn't be possible to get those values on a Stalker without Staff. And the scary thing is that I didn't even plan around Guarded Spin when considering that.


The point is that Staff has end-game potential, but not because it is a top-tier DPS set. It has a decent AoE, good enough damage, and allows players to build in previously impossible ways. It is both mechanically and aesthetically fun to play, and better in low levels than most sets.


For those wondering, my theoretical DPS charts would top out over 450 with 75% more damage buff (ie: Assault), while Melee would allow me to cap resistances to S/L/N/P, as well as getting F/C to 70+ and E to 47%. In addition, I would be nearly softcapped without SM.

Just an update: I've leveled my Staff/Dark Stalker to level 12. Along the way, I would say 75% of my teammates were staff fighters, a testament to how high the interest was in the set. I mainly used sewer trials, and the amount of early level AoE was staggering.

So far, the set is living to my predictions. It is excellent at lower levels, even without using the forms. While Stalkers lose out from an AoE perspective, the recent Stalker changes have made the AT downright OP in the early game. I'm not even using AS as my opener anymore, preferring instead to open with Precise Strikes, followed by MB and GS and capped by AS. This will usually leave at least two lts down.

This set seems to fill a nice niche to me. Usually I obsess about single target DPS as much as anyone, but I am liking the way Staff is working out. It reminds me a lot of Katana back in the day, as its semi-low DPS is balanced by its other bonuses. Katana had DA and a decent AoE, along with -def to help hit in low levels, while Staff also has a parry-clone, decent AoEs, and endurance/recharge tools to help in the low levels. Staff is actual helped by its attacks in the low level, and has been remarkably end-efficient (I have picked up every Staff attack so far, and generally don't run out of end even running sprint and attacking non-stop).

However, I still think that Staff will be second-tier at the high-end, where DPS becomes more important. I think the simplest fix would be to increase the bonus from Form of Body from 5% to 10%, along with a slight increase in bonus damage for Sky Splitter. This would help it compete in the high end. I think the 15% buff is just a little to small to account for the long animations and lack of other damage options, but 30% is probably good compensation.

My first impression of Staff Fighting:

HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE HEE !!!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dispari I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.

You only get body mastery on Stalkers. I'm enjoying the different flavours of buffs on my Scrapper. I tried Mind for Hasten but kept running out of end so I switched to Soul for +rec and it's pretty decent. Only level 12 atm I think Mind Mastery is going to be awesome at high levels.

Yes, these were mostly my impressions of Staff as well.

Buffing/Debuffing
-Self +resist is a unique attribute for melee sets, and this can add huge survivability to nearly every set.
-The +Def is actually in a decent power (guarded spin), but at endgame you will probably softcap without it, relegating this power to a set mule (ATO+lotg, KC+lotg, or just a lotg)
-AoE -resist is also unique to melee sets. This is somewhat limited by EotS's radius.

AoE DPS
-Blooms extremely early
-Can take FF proc
-Only a 10' radius on EotS (instead of 15' like TW and SS)
-IS adds extra aoe, but isn't particularily amazing when comparing to additional aoes in other sets which are typically faster.

ST DPS
-Other than stalkers, as mentioned, the ST dps isn't competitive
-DPS for stalkers works because it gets a second high dmg attack to work in tandem with Sky SPlitter. Not getting that 2nd high dmg attack on other ATs is why the dps is more or less 'meh' on other ATs
-230-240 dps sounds about right, considering my staff brute was getting 227 dps on beta without really proccing out the attacks.

Other
-Lack of tohit buff can be annoying at times on nonstalkers. Killing lvl 54 rikti in the rwz on my beta staff brute really made me notice this trying to actually hit bubbled Drones
-The additional forms are largely useless. Body is always the way to go. The end discount can be nice leveling up if you need it, but by the time you're 50 (or even just by the time you get Sky splitter) you're just going to want to build for proper recovery so you can leverage Body's +res and -res. This also means Stalkers that are "losing" the other forms, aren't really losing anything, in exchange they gain a "free" power and get BU as well. It's not even a close trade off.
-Is a redraw set and therefore can't really leverage outside attacks like Burn or Gloom.

Here's what I would like to have happen:

• Increase recharge on Serpent's Reach from 9 seconds to 12 seconds, and increase endurance from 9.36 to 11.856. Increase the damage to 2.394, or about Swoop-level.
  
• Increase recharge on Sky Splitter from 15 seconds to 20 seconds, and increase endurance from 14.352 to 18.512. Damage scalar would increase from 2.898 to 3.339, 3.63 with level 3 Forms.
  
• Increase the Form of Body bonus from 5% for non-scrappers and 6% (?) for scrappers to 10% and 12%. This probably shouldn't happen in combination with the other two, but is another option.
  
• Increase the Form of Mind bonus to a max of 25%, to make it competitive with the other two forms.
  
• Increase radius on Eye of the Storm from 10 ft to 12 ft. Also, add an alternate animation for those that don't want to break danceThis is mostly because I don't think they would be willing to extend it to 15 feet.

That you think Staff's aoe could be called comparable to axe and mace, let alone worse, leads me to believe that you either don't know what you're talking about or are intentionally obfuscating in this silly crusade for buffs. Fortunately, the devs can probably tell that the anti-staff echo chamber is primarily composed of about six people.

I'm liking the extra range, Guarded Spin and Soul Form at the lower levels. I'm even putting off Hasten until later. FF proccing all of the KB powers.

Was going to run it with NRG Aura but decided to go with Electric Armor (for the def/red hybrid build).

The extra range is making me wonder if there's any difference between melee and ranged DPS (does having that little bit of extra range skew DPS delivery?)

I'm not a big melee person, so I'm probably missing something. But could someone explain to me how Staff Fighting is mechanically different from Street Justice, Titan Weapons, Dual Blades, or Kinetic Melee? They all follow the same formula -- hit something to get a buff that charges up a higher level attack.

Aside from the aesthetics -- which *are* cool -- it just doesn't feel that new. More of the same old combo melee mechanic.

Actually one difference that I personally find very significant is that unlike previous combo sets, staff's finishers are also builders depending on context. In practical terms this means that if you use a finisher with less than three perfection, you'll get to keep on trucking for a while with the level three buffs so the combo points aren't wasted as they are with previous sets. You also have the option of simply not using finishers if you want to maintain level three perfection buffs intentionally. Just in terms of the combo sets, staff is as far as anything has been from dual blades' restrictive system. You have a huge amount of leeway to use the system as you choose to (if you're not playing a stalker).

I'm pretty sure Zwill asked people not to talk about those things.

Regarding staff's performance, I don't need to prove anything. I'm not the one asking for changes. It's great how it is and in this game as in life it is up to those who wanted to alter the status quo to justify their position. Who else besides you has done any numerical argument for staff buffs? Combat suggests new numbers he feels would be better yet makes no effort to explain why change is necessary or desirable in the first place. You can't just say "Hmmm, this single target seems kind of low to me plus I didn't like my pylon time. Obviously the set needs to be overhauled." Not only do you guys continually ignore staff's aoe potential in thread after thread, you dismiss offhand every other thing about it.

By the way, as I've said elsewhere, once Hybrid is out the real value of staff will be incredibly obvious. I don't think that point has escaped you, but it certainly doesn't help your case.

Staff Fighting is the melee version of what Dual Pistols should have been.

By the way Combat, for you numbers on EotS, are you making sure to remove the damage from inactive forms?

Ingame numbers (using scrapper mods):

123.12 total damage.

6*12.83 damage over 2.3 secs (76.98 total)

Then it adds on 15.39 depending on what form you are in, but for the total damage it adds them all together, the actual total being 92.39 rather than 123.12.

I figure you caught this also, but just wanted to make sure.

Combat, why is it that you have yet again elected to ignore the level three perfection bonus for eye of the storm? Is it because you feel that it's an impossible goal for a staff fighter to achieve three stacks of it, or is it because you're still pretending the forms don't exist?

Staff is also the only melee set for any AT with a baked-in method of guaranteeing one's ability to run Assault Hybrid. If you think a permanent 75% damage buff for scrappers is insignificant I can see how that wouldn't sway you.

Sorry about the double post, but I dislike editing in things that happened while I was posting.

Quote:

Originally Posted by PleaseRecycle You're ignoring the fact that eye can do ~15% bonus damage every time it is fired as a part of staff's best aoe chain, you're ignoring the -res, you're ignoring the +def, and you're ignoring the bonus range. You also wrote off the forms as useless in high end content, presumably you haven't been keeping up on issue 23. You're also apparently ignoring the fact that axe's aoe is far worse than mace's. I don't think you are ignorant, that was merely a set-up to assert that you're angling for undue buffs. Like I said to Shinobi, I'd love to see you try to mathematically demonstrate that change is appropriate, let alone necessary.

You've made the assertion that the forms will magically become more important after I23. That seems like something that should be proven or at least supported. Unless you are just trying to say that .52 endurance will make Soul more attractive, because then I would probably agree, though that merely means that Form of Body and Form of Mind become unused, rather than Soul and Mind. Two of the three will still be significantly less important.

Now for my analysis. First, I did count for the bonus range (that was the area number that I gave, designed to show how large the AoEs actually are). Secondly, damage is damage. Even if I multiplied all of Staff's AoEs by 1.075 to account for the -resist, they would still only account for .7138, .683, and .835 DPA, and that's counting on the 30% bonus damage in Eye of the Storm. And all of those assume that you have ALREADY used your chain and gotten the bonus damage and -res, which isn't a 100% thing. And if you are going to do that, you really should average between the two states (and account for Mace using BU...).

Battle Axe is worse, admittedly. Unfortunately, I read Cleave's cone as 190 degrees, rather than 19, which definitely lowers the bar for the set's AoEs. My bad. Whirling Axe is underpowered and Pendulum is weak. I forgot that BA was worse than Mace at everything... oh well, that's one reason I have no BA characters.

Anyway, that only leaves Mace, SS, TW, ElM, Spines, and FM (maybe not for non-tankers). And Claws may come out ahead because of how good Spin is. Stj has more damaging AoEs, but the size allows me to give Staff an advantage.

Either way, we are still talking about Staff's strengths. People aren't really worried about Staff being weak in AoE or versatility, they are worried that staff is a bottom-feeder in single target. And it is. My changes would at least make them mediocre.