Staff Fighting damage comparison

So I've heard mixed opinions about Staff fighting, mostly negative, but I have wanted it for so long.. I just.. WANT it.


I compared the damage capability with some other sets and sadly did find it to be quite lacking.

My questions are.. am I missing something, or is it actually pretty low damage?

I do actually like the idea of 7.5% res/all or Regen/Recovery from my Primary, do you feel these defensive/buffing abilities make up for the lack of damage, if so?


Finally, just how much of a difference does the bonus damage from Combo levels with Form of the Body make? Mid's does not reflect this bonus, though I feel it will likely be something to easily disregard.

Staff is very solidly in the middle of the pack for ST damage, something akin to Katana in those terms...

But for AoE, staff is solidly above average...it also has the forms which allow you to do things other sets do not.

Staff is a good set, but not the be all end all of melee sets.

Fact: Staff fighting does not do damage. Proof: Have you ever seen a good player playing staff fighting? No. Good players use super strength, or sometimes more average sets like titan weapons. Here's an easy test: look at the buff bar on the team window. The alive guy at the top of the list should have a "rage" icon next to his "burn" icon. A handy mnemonic is, "If you don't see rage, you should be in one." If you see "momentum," don't panic, that is also acceptable. Staff not only does not have rage, it does not have momentum. Wow, nice balance devs, if I hadn't already unsubbed because of m$rty you can bet I'd be taking my business elsewhere due to this flagrant disregard for basic decency. A slap in the face? Not even. More like a knee to the groin. I'm literally seething in my chair.

Staff is a fun set to play. You got to admit the animations are cool. I enjoy playing it.

It doesn't do damage like Super Strength. I have no idea why people compare everything to SS. I dont think the damage is that bad.

Staff/Fire Cave, about an hour. SS/Fire Cave, about 40 minutes. Staff has more defense, more utility, levels easier, and is more easily adpated to non-farming. I'd say that's good enough. I would like to see more ST damage out of the set, but It's good enough as is, just not superb like the few outliers.

Oh wow, didn't realize elec or staff could put out that much ST dps.

Katana and Staff can...elec cannot...it is somewhere around 160-190

My Katana is currently retired so I can't do head to head tests, but it "feels" like staff is ~40 dps behind Katana in single target damage. Obviously this could vary by builds. As well, ST damage is not at all an issue on staff stalkers with the added AS and ATOs, but they lose the utility of the forms as well as some AoE as I recall.

I'm not trying to compare this to SS, there are sets that are going to be undeniably the Kings of their strengths, just trying to get a feel for what the majority of people feel SF's strengths are.

I figured it'd be a beautiful, quick set, so would really benefit from recharge, and end up doing decent damage over the course of a lot of fast attacks (like the Smash version of Katana or Claws) but sadly it has a lack of high DPA skills.. well, longer animations than I was expecting and lower damage to boot, really.

Not quite as bad as Dual Pistols on the damage front... but alarming enough that I wasn't going to insta-buy and roll the set.


The more I think about it, I'll probably pick it up cheap when it's on sale, and play one for fun. I was planning on doing /Energy but I might do /Fire for some extra damage, and have the +RES actually be an important part of the build. Though, that might feel weird if I feel I "need" it since I have plenty of characters that're perfectly fine living already.

I don't really need any more farmers so I don't care if it'll +4x8 all day long. I actually had a ton of fun in the iTrials on my Claws/Regen brute on Exalted (apparently, when people were actually playing it) but.. claws..... uh. I've made my point.

The offensive form. I could improve the build more, for farming, but I'm at the point that improved farming would hurt non-farm content, and I'm happy with ~60 minutes. It's possible the recharge form might be of more use to a brute, I've really not tested it enough to know.

I'm pretty sure it can hit the ~50 min mark with a farm-only build, but I don't think it will ever hit the 40m mark. Nor do I want a farm-only build.

Depends who you are fighting. I ran through Maria Jenkins arc solo, and only struggled taking down marauder. Then I did the mission with siege, and I just could not kill him. An even con elite boss being difficult on a scrapper is pretty sad. I had to buy a tray full of red insps to take him down.
I love all the aoe and versatility on the set though.
Right now I'm working on getting a damage interface in to see if it will even that out a bit.

Edit* just realized I am in the brute forum. I don't know how brutes and scraps compare on this set, but I'm sure they would still struggle plenty against high smashing resistance.

Siege is pretty crazy though, I think the only reason I was able to take him out on my SS tank was due to stacking purples to dodge the heal thing...Assuming it can get dodged.

I guess it's possible I was doing more damage than a brute, but it seems pretty unlikely.

Are you talking about Siege as an AV or as an Elite Boss? I solo'd that arc with my SF/Elec Brute and DM/Regen Scrap and there was nothing that came close to giving me any trouble (as Elite Bosses).