Invulnerability isn't especially endurance intensive by itself but by the time you add tough, weave and whatever other toggles you may want it can chew up some EPS, just like any secondary. Staff is actually quite light on endurance before you even consider the forms.
Some people would argue that staff is a low damage set, and to do so they would cite fully purpled and incarnated builds soloing Rikti pylons. As you can see this doesn't have much to do with the low budget build you are proposing. I find them to be incorrect in the first place but I can safely say that for your purposes staff's damage is more than just adequate.
As to their synergy, well, staff likes having lots of enemies around from very early on and so does invulnerability. Guarded spin, an excellent aoe attack, provides melee and lethal defense instead of both smashing and lethal as one typically expects to accompany melee. This is relevant to invuln since its own substantial defenses are typed, thus the melee portion of guarded spin isn't normally applicable. In other words, if you rely on guarded spin for defense you'll have a smashing hole. That sounds dirty. Overall I'd say that isn't really an issue and if you were going to have either smashing or lethal defense boosted by one of your staple attacks lethal is the more desirable of the two since it is more helpful in preventing defense debuffs.
Long story short, sounds like a good combo to me. Pick up pretty much every attack as well as staff mastery and from level eight you'll be a bottomless font of endurance and noggin whacking.
Thank you for your answer.
If i was to build this toon (which i probably will) what levels are the "droughts" for Staff and Inv.
My main is a SS/WP brute that just walks in and kills things without breaking a sweat. I don't expect to this new toon to be like that. So here is another question:
Excluding purple IO's, could Staff/Inv brute be a top notch toon?
I don't have billions of Inf to just throw around but i could get get some of the nicer sets like Numina's, Miracle, LotG ( i plan on building for recharge/survivability anyway), obliteration, etc. I don't want to make the most un-killable toon in the game but then again i don't want to the Hospital nurse to know me by name either, if you get what I'm saying.
Professor Smoque - Lvl 50 Fire/Fire Blaster
Little Smoquey - Lvl 50 Fire/Kin Controller
Papa Smoque - Lvl 50 Stone/Fire/Earth Tanker
Dr Smoque - Lvl 46 (Perma Bridge) Emp/Elec/Dark Defender
UnNown - Lvl 50 SS/WP Brute
I'd call invuln at least as sturdy as willpower in most cases. It isn't that expensive to build up a good amount of s/l/e/n defense: reactive armor is your friend and is easy to slot on an invuln, eradications and kinetic combats are a bit pricier yet are available for two alignment merits a piece just like every other rare set. Staff has no weak levels, like I said from level eight onwards you're constantly throwing attacks around with no regard for endurance at all thanks to form of the soul. Some people feel invuln is kind of squishy before invincibility at level 28, but that isn't such a long trek and especially not when you have such an early-blooming primary.
Honestly purples wouldn't do all that much for staff/invuln compared to most brutes you could come up with, if anything it's an especially good combination for low to moderate investment. I purpled my staff scrapper and it's nice to be able to run the top chains, but at level 49 I was never wanting for attacks to fire if you take my meaning. Just sauntering into full team spawns and ripping into them should be right up staff/inv's alley.
I've been reading about Staff Fighting alot lately and it seems interesting. I've also always been curious about Inv. I've never built a toon with a weapon or with Inv , so i thought that a Staff/Inv would take care of both urges in one toon. So here are my questions:
1. Would Staff and Inv compliment each other well?
2. Does Staff have good damage capabilities?
3. Is Inv a End heavy set?
4. Is Staff a End heavy set?
Also, i don't have tons of inf so lets just say Im only going to put Regular IO's in this toon. I'm not going to worry about sets when i haven't even make the character yet.
Thank you for your answers.
Professor Smoque - Lvl 50 Fire/Fire Blaster
Little Smoquey - Lvl 50 Fire/Kin Controller
Papa Smoque - Lvl 50 Stone/Fire/Earth Tanker
Dr Smoque - Lvl 46 (Perma Bridge) Emp/Elec/Dark Defender
UnNown - Lvl 50 SS/WP Brute