Staff Mastery?

[jneely7]

Would someone please explain this power and it's three forms to me because I honestly don't get it. 

[Lockpick]

11 hours ago, jneely7 said:

Would someone please explain this power and it's three forms to me because I honestly don't get it. 

 

I have a Staff / WP at 50, so have a little experience with this power.  Basically, taking this power, you will gain access to the 3 powers and the ability to generate Perfection.  Once you generate 3 levels of Perfection you will be able to use another Power (Eye of the Storm or Sky Splitter) for additional effects. 

 

Form of the Body: This power is obtained by purchasing Staff Mastery. All Staff Fighting attacks will build a level of Perfection of Body while this toggle is active. Each level will boost the user's damage output slightly. Once the user has built up 3 levels of Perfection of Body and they execute Eye of the Storm, the attack will reduce the target's damage resistance (-7.5%) and will deal additional smashing damage. Executing Sky Splitter with three levels of Perfection of Body will deal additional smashing damage and grant the user a moderate resistance buff (9.98% to all) for a short time.

 

Form of the Mind: This power is obtained by purchasing Staff Mastery. All Staff Fighting attacks will build a level of Perfection of Mind while this toggle is active. Each level will boost the user's recharge rate slightly. Once the user has built up 3 levels of Perfection of Mind and they execute Eye of the Storm, the attack will slow (-12%) the target slightly and will deal additional psychic damage. Executing Sky Splitter with three levels of Perfection of Mind will deal additional psychic damage and grant the user a moderate to hit buff (20%) for a short time.

 

Form of the Soul: This power is obtained by purchasing Staff Mastery. All Staff Fighting attacks will build a level of Perfection of Soul while this toggle is active. Each level will grant the user an Endurance Discount. Once the user has built up 3 levels of Perfection of Soul and they execute Eye of the Storm, the attack will target's defense slightly (-7.5% to all) and will deal additional energy damage. Executing Sky Splitter with three levels of Perfection of Soul will deal additional energy damage and grant the user a moderate regeneration (125%) and recovery buff (83%) for a short time.

 

Each of these toggle powers will allow the user to build up levels of Perfection, which grant the user a stacking short duration buff. Each buff is unique to the active form, and only one form can be active at a time. Perfection can be released by executing Eye of the Storm or Sky Splitter. When either of these attacks are empowered with Perfection they will have additional effects that are unique to each form.

 

This information primarily comes from: https://paragonwiki.com/wiki/Staff_Fighting#Staff_Mastery

 

I personally generally just stay in Form of the Mind for the Psionic Damage, but if I run into enemies that resist Psionic I will switch to Body.  I haven't really done a bunch of stance dancing in game to determine the values for the other effects, but I just now spent some time looking at Mids and added the values I saw above in the descriptions in bold.  Form of the Soul may be very good if your secondary doesn't help with Endurance Recovery.

 

Hopefully some of our number crunchers will see this thread and will add some guidance on the best stance, but they all look pretty decent to me.   As a matter of fact they look much better than I thought, so I will start playing around with Soul and maybe move away from Agility to Musculature.

 

I will generally build perfection by using:

 

Mercurial Blow - Precision Strike - Guarded Strike (for the defense bonus) then either EotS or Sky Splitter depending on if I am against a single target or multiple targets.  This is not necessarily the best attack chain, but it is easy to run and is effective.

 

If I am just against single target I may run Precise Strike - Serpent's Reach - Precise Strike - Sky Splitter.

 

 

Anyway, hope this helps.  I like Staff as a power set, so hope you enjoy it.

 

Edited December 7, 2019 by Lockpick
Updates

[Williwaw]

I used Form of the Soul a lot back in the day, but that was because it was Staff/Dark, and Dark is an endurance hog. :D

[jneely7]

Thanks for the info 

[Yomo Kimyata]

I almost always use Form of the Body.  My usual attack chain for groups is Guarded Strike for defense, Mercurial Blow (which has an Achilles Heel in it), Precision Strike, then Eye for the -res debuff.