Staff mastery stances?

[Heraclea]

I just finished levelling a staff/ninjitsu scrapper.  Question:

 

Do you ever, evern use anything other than Form of the Soul?  Body might be beneficial to people with resistance armor sets, but I am not that.   

[Apparition]

I have never, ever used Form of the Soul.  I have other things that handle endurance issues.  I use either Form of the Body for the extra damage and -res on mobs, or Form of the Mind for the +recharge.  In fact, I don't even have Form of the Soul on any of my power trays, but I do Form of the Body and Form of the Mind.

[Luminara]

Legionette only uses Body.  She has enough endurance (120%) and +Recovery (261%), she has enough global recharge to make complete AoE and single-target attack chains, she's slotted well enough to hit +3 critters with everything, so the -Res is the only useful effect for her build.

[Heraclea]

I have two staff cbaracters now - a staff/regen brute who was basically a science experiment, seeing if a /regen brute could make an adequate tank.  The other is a staff/ninjitsu scrapper, another concept character, this one trying to build a retiarius gladiator.  Neither has terrible endurance issues but I just like to see the blue bar hardly moving, so I have always played both in Soul.  Will give Body a go. 

[ZemX]

So I've just started a Scrapper version of my Staff/Nin Stalker and this was one of my worries going in.  Having only Form of Body on the Stalker there wasn't a choice, but... while I was certain I would use the different stances leveling up the Scrapper, I figured it was likely I'd settle back into Form of Body anyway permanently.   Well, not so much a worry then, but a slight disappointment at having a choice I'll end up not making much use of.

 

So it's good to see people are finding use for the stances later on.  It's eventually a zero sum game anyway, isn't it?  If I need more blue, I need it.  Getting it some other way means giving up potentially recharge or damage maybe in other ways (like choice of Alpha slot) or extra slots given over to +end procs.  That sort of thing.

[ZorkNemesis]

On my Staff/Elec Scrapper i'll go between Body and Soul depending on my End needs.  That's really it. If I can keep my end up without Soul's end discount, I don't need it and will instead just go for more damage from Body.  Thankfully with /Elec's Power Sink and Energize it's not hard to keep the blue bar up, and throwing in Cardiac Alpha is overkill.

[ZemX]

17 hours ago, ZorkNemesis said:

On my Staff/Elec Scrapper i'll go between Body and Soul depending on my End needs.

Just passed 20 and this is how it's been going so far, but already I'm using Soul less and less.  Slotted Panacea and Perf Shifter.  Picked up Ninjitsu's +end clicky.  And I don't even have any endrdx slotted in attacks yet.   

[merrypessimist]

I play staff on several ATs and on all of them I use Body exclusively.  +dam and -res are more useful than end redux or recharge, both of which are more than covered by my protective set and/or set bonuses.

[Nemu]

I use soul on my staff/regen brute with whirlwind. Without soul she won't be able keep spinning, and spinning is winning. soooo...

[JStacy337]

My Invuln/Staff Tanker has been using Form of the Mind almost exclusively once she was able to slot Miracle and Numina (really need to swap out that Regenerative Tissue for Panacea). Could probably swap to Body since I put the FF procs in Eye of the Storm and Sky Splitter 

[kelika2]

Exemplaring: blue stance

anything 40+: red stance, unless I get sapped or something then start stance dancing

 

the +dmg is hardly noticeable on brutes.  the -res hardly has a chance to do anything with how fast this game moves and bouncing group to group there is a chance for stacks to flat out drop

[Yomo Kimyata]

Form of the Mind -- I never use it, ever.  You have three attacks that can slot FF +recharge so recharge is rarely an issue.  If you really need the to hit buff from the Sky Splitter finisher, you are probably better off finding it from other sources.

 

Form of the Soul -- I only use this at low levels or with a particularly troublesome secondary (like Dark Armor).  Fair finisher with Sky Splitter for +recovery and +regeneration, but again I generally address this elsewhere in my build.  Note:  build up three levels and don't use a finisher to keep your endurance costs at a minimum.

 

Form of the Body -- All around winner in my eyes.  more damage is great.  -res finisher from Eye is great.  +resistance buff finisher from sky splitter is great.

[MTeague]

Levelling in early to mid 20's I used Form of the Soul almost exclusively to handle Endurance issues. In Form of the Soul, I could do an attack chain FOR DAYYYYYSS. Never ever stop, just Naginata-Storm-Of-Doom. Any other form, I'd find I'd need to pause and kneel after every fight.  Even WITH Quick Recovery (though QR was default slot only and had Power Transfer proc)

 

Once I hit the early 30's and got enough slots to start getting decent Endurance Reduction / More Recovery, then I started foolish around with Mind and Body.  Haveven't been super impressed with Mind. +Recharge never SUCKS of course, but I almost never need to pause in my attacks at all anyway.  Form of the Body can be nice for some +Resist (since I'm Staff / WP, any +Resist is more layered types of sustain for me). The -Res in Eye of the Storm, doesn't suck? But I didn't really feel that I lacked for kill speed to begin with. 

[Zepp]

I use body, and I don't use Sky Splitter or Eye of the Storm... Having the constant damage buff is kinda nice...