My impression of Staff Fighting (numerical and otherwise)

The point of an argument is to convince people of something.

So it really doesn't matter if you think an argument is fallacious: If people find the argument convincing, IT'S A GOOD ARGUMENT. And the contrary is also true: It doesn't matter how logical you think your argument is, if no one believes you, IT'S A BAD ARGUMENT.

Not participating in the "debate", just offering some individual feedback. I am having a ton of fun leveling my staff/inv scrapper, currently lvl 32 (looking forward to throwing the big hitter into the mix now!) I am having more fun than with my other youngish melee chars using the new-school sets (a lvl 24 street justice/sr brute and lvl 26 titan/wp scrapper), which I will likely not pick up again, until I 50 this char. The key for me is the continous AoE chain, which regardless of target caps on the cones really make me feel like a meat grinder. The animations flow together in a way that is viscerally VERY satisfying to me. Having Guarded Spin available as an opener encourages bold spawn diving, which is my preferred playstyle. I can't say I don't miss Build-up, but in some ways it encourages a more continuous gonzo playstyle, which I am embracing.

If you're on Liberty, look me up for stick fighting good times. Trixie Styx (lvl 32 staff/invuln).

My impression of staff fighting is that it does mediocre to subpar single target damage, and slightly above average aoe damage, with soem decent, unique perks.

The real test of how well staff fighting was made will be to see how popular the set remains after people hit 50 with it and the shine wears off. I don't think it will hold up. IMO, it's another dual pistols, all flash and no go. Some will still play it for concept or looks, but that's about it.

Staff supporters are saying that the extra perks are the strength of the set, and while I agree that is what the idea was in how it was designed, the perks don't make up for the mediocre overall damage performance. The plus damage merely attempts to make up for the loss of build up, and offers no to-hit bonus, yet this toggle is almost mandatory if you want to even be competitive with other sets damage-wise, with it off, you're a bottom-feeder. The bonus recharge and endurance the other forms offer are nice while leveling, but become less and less advantageous at higher levels and especially end game. Other sets have a much easier time building endurance management and recharge bonuses than a staff will have trying to increase damage output.

As I guessed before it was released, the only place staff is really competitive is with a stalker, since it retains its above average aoe, and it's damage is boosted thanks to the free damage form, build up, and a heavy hitting single target attack in AS.

I think it's probably fair comment. If you are an incarnate, with effectively unlimited endurance, and easily capped defences, Staff doesn't hold up all that well. However, in order to get there you have to level, and Staff is a joy to level, whereas something like Titan Weapons is a pig. And anyway, by the same argument, tankers (+ defenders, masterminds, controllers etc) of any type don't hold up at incarnate level.

And yes, the Stalker version is stronger.

Wait, it doesn't? Crap, should I quit soloing DA on x8 or is it okay if I keep it up?

I mean if you're saying that my staff/elec scrapper is as sturdy as your ice/energy tanker, yeah, I think that's probably true. I can guess which of them handles those missions faster, though!

To add a query to my snark, I guess I'm wondering what it is you think staff can't do in terms of end-game stuff? I know a thing or two about end-game stuff and it seems more than satisfactory for my purposes. Yesterday I tanked a STF as the only melee in 32:54 with a bunch of lowbies on the team. Just now, six man ITF in 19:53 followed by a five man Kahn in 22:26. No deaths on any of those. Would you expect better results with a different set? Better in what way? In any case, once I get another rare I'll have my spectral radial total conversion and should be able to see what kind of pylon time I can produce. My estimate based on what I've been seeing so far is that it will blow DreadShinobi's out of the water, and that's without perfectly optimal conditions (musculature is still tier 3, spectral instead of reactive, etc).

Ukase, all I can say is I haven't ever made any comment on the stalker version because it didn't look very appealing to me. I've never felt that one great single target attack would be worth giving up all of the other things stalkers give up for it in staff's case.

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Originally Posted by PRAF68_EU Sure, it's perfectly satisfactory. Just like every other scrapper primary. It's only when you start looking at edge cases that some people don't think it looks so good. If you have unlimited endurance, FoS doesn't look attractive. If you have your defences capped out with IOs and incarnate abilities, then the sets defensive bonuses don't look attractive. If you don't have long cooldown clicks FoM doesn't hold much attraction, and so on. Under those circumstances, if all you care about is maximising damage output, then other sets do better. But since most people don't play under those conditions, and the game certainly isn't balanced around those conditions, it really doesn't matter. If damage is all you care about, then Titan Weapons is all you will get.

The fact remains that nobody has demonstrated in any way that staff is actually lacking at high level. You were replying to Cybernaut's bravely unfounded declaration that staff is simply obviously bad. He didn't prove it, you didn't prove it, Combat didn't prove it.

Look at all of those "ifs" you threw out there. How many of them are mutually exclusive in an actual build? Well, you were vague enough that it's hard to say, but what we can say is that there aren't any top end titan weapons builds that manage every single thing you accuse staff of not handling all at once. Every build has compromise of one sort or another. You cannot softcap all types on a resistance set, if you go with a defense set you don't get a damage aura, et cetera. My point is and has been that staff's widely varied abilities present different, not inferior, compromises than typical sets have in the past.

As one example, now that my scrapper is incarnated out I typically rely on form of the body because I typically don't need the extra endurance management. While exemplaring, or while engaged in a protracted AV fight, or any number of other actual things that I've actually done, endurance can become more of an issue and at that point I am one thumb button click away from infinite endurance mode. Titan weapons doesn't have that option and never will, yet recent history tells us that the devs will absolutely continue adding ever more esoteric challenges to the game. My staff/elec is pretty much ready to take all comers. Is your farmer?