Best Secondary for Staff?

[00Troy00]

I haven't seen that many Stsff stalkers (which makes me inclined to make one). I'm not sure about thr most optimal secondary though, and would appreciate opinions.

[Lockpick]

The most optimal secondary for almost all primaries is probably Bio with Energy Aura up there pretty close.

 

Honestly, you really can't go wrong with any of the secondaries.  I also like SR and Inv.

[ZemX]

Thing to keep in mind with Staff is that there isn't, currently anyway, a "no-redraw" option.  This makes active secondaries less attractive because it means you'll be putting away and redrawing that weapon a lot.  Theoretically all weapon animations were supposed to have been normalized so that whether you were drawing-then-attacking or just attacking with the weapon already out, the animation time was the same... but I am not sure that was ever done for Staff Fighting, which came quite towards the end of the game on Live.

 

SR is pretty attractive then because the only thing that will cause redraw is Practiced Brawler.  No other click-activated powers in the set.  It's also nice when paired with Staff's Guarded Spin (+def to melee/lethal) because it stacks up melee defense.  You can then focus more on ranged/AoE def bonuses while enjoying early soft-capped melee defense while leveling.   Same is true for Ninjitsu, although it also has a click-heal and some other click powers (if you take them).  Pairing with a typed-defense secondary means stacking up lethal defense with Guarded Spin... which is less protective than melee positional defense.

 

Then again, if you do want to pair it with a hybrid resist set like Rad Armor, that can work too since with a little melee def bonus in IO sets added to Guarded Spin you can easily soft-cap melee while enjoying the good resist/regen/recovery the secondary gives you.

[Carnifax]

As Zem says the lack of a NoRedraw setting for Staff is maddening. I have a Staff/NRG/Dark brute and found it got too much. 

 

So when I rolled a Staff I went Inv for the lack of clickies (1 occasional +hp with Dull Pain), and Weapon Mastery for Physical Perfection + Targetting Drone. No snipe or Ball Lightning probably hurts but it's bearable. More bearable than constantly whipping it out was (steady!). If the set got a NoRedraw I'd respec the epic probably

 

Inv is also nice on a Stalker since it's a bit of everything. Very easy to stack IO sets on top of a strong base, and you get some DDR (50%). Works pretty well overall. Sky Splitter on a Stalker with crits on demand is nice. Guarded Spin on top of Inv goes a long way towards melee softcap (on top of lots of typed Def and capped s/l resists, and a big heap of extra HP). 

 

 

Edited August 16, 2021 by Carnifax

[SeraphimKensai]

I have a heavily IO's staff/invuln and the toon can be built to be pretty beastly.

 

That said I also have /SR, /Bio, /Energy, and /Nin stalkers maxed out that work extremely well also.

[ZorkNemesis]

16 hours ago, ZemX said:

Theoretically all weapon animations were supposed to have been normalized so that whether you were drawing-then-attacking or just attacking with the weapon already out, the animation time was the same... but I am not sure that was ever done for Staff Fighting, which came quite towards the end of the game on Live.

 

This probably isn't a solid arguement, but Staff Fighting and Titan Weapon have colorable animations in addition to the weapons themselves.  I suspect that might be part of the reason they didn't get No Draw options.  I think Spines and Thorns also lacks such a redraw, but they're also a lot faster on the draw anyhow.

 

I think Beam Rifle and Mace Mastery are also missing No Draws?

[Without_Pause]

I might still lean with /ea. You have two clicks. End game wise, blue bar issues should be easy enough to fix, so you are really likely just looking at the heal and that can either be equal or used more/less than Practiced Brawler in comparison to /sr. Case in point, +2/x3 with IOs and and some Incarnate stuff done. I think I looked at my end bar once just to see and it was healthy. I clicked on the heal once, and that could have been handled with a green. I'm still trying to figure out what diff setting I want for end game content. Even if I could do x8, I likely won't since there is a time/fun issue. Note, this is on a SJ/ea. I would lean on bigger mobs if I was Elec. I'm probably fine with x4 as I don't really play my stalkers to clear huge packs. I want to get in and out and move on asap. I might bump it to +3. Just depends on the mission.

[Nightmarer 2]

On 8/14/2021 at 8:44 PM, 00Troy00 said:

I haven't seen that many Stsff stalkers (which makes me inclined to make one). I'm not sure about thr most optimal secondary though, and would appreciate opinions.

Staff/WP. No clickies so no redraw plus over 2k HP after accolades on a stalker, nuff said.

[ZemX]

Since that earlier post I have paid more attention to my staff fighters and I'm convinced now the redraw is not a performance issue.  It does not add time to your attack chain.  It instead causes the attack you activated that caused the redraw to have its animation interrupted by the attack following it.  i.e. If you, without the staff drawn, do something like Guarded Spin -> Precise Strike -> Eye of the Storm, you will find that Precise Strike begins at the same moment as if you'd started that same chain with the staff already drawn.  It's because Guarded Spin, in the redraw case, has its animation interrupted such that the time from redraw to where it is interrupted is equal to the normal animation time of Guarded Spin.

 

Sorry if that earlier post caused confusion.  Redraw certainly makes things FEEL slower but it is a perception only provided you always queue your next attack while the redraw animation is playing.

[SmalltalkJava]

2 hours ago, ZemX said:

Redraw certainly makes things FEEL slower

Yes from all I've tested and seen.  Redraw is just visual. It has no impact on actual cast times and attack chains