Staff

[00Troy00]

What AT fits best with staff. And what primary/secondary synergies with it well?

[Haijinx]

stalker - gain a fast ST attack, and a full power build-up multiplied by all the buildups stalker ato's give 

[aethereal]

Yeah, I don't have much experience, but I think that common wisdom is that it's Stalker.  You give up a cone attack for assassin's strike, you get build-up, and you also just get Perfection of Body for free.

[00Troy00]

Thanks all.

 

Any opinions about what secondary fits with Staff thr best?

[kelika2]

Staff/willpower brute

Melee def from spin allowed me to slot ranged/aoe def

end or dmg stance depending on situation

 

[ZorkNemesis]

3 hours ago, 00Troy00 said:

Thanks all.

 

Any opinions about what secondary fits with Staff thr best?

 

Thematically I consider Super Reflexes to be a good fit.  Given the agility required to twirl a stick like you would, it would make sense to have a character who's also rapidly moving and avoiding everything too.  Functionally it might be overkill since you'll be well over the melee defense cap with Guarded Spins but all the DDR SR provides will guarentee you'll only take melee hits if the streakbreaker mechanic says so.

 

One thing you might want to consider, unlike other weapon-based sets Staff doesn't have an option for "No Redraw".  This means any time you use a power that isn't a Staff power you'll have to spend an extra second pulling the stick out of your ass when you resume attacking.  Reflexes will make you have to use Practiced Brawler quite often to maintain status protection.  If you pick a defense set that's less active you won't have to waste as much time with the redraw animations.  Willpower shines here since the set has no powers you need to click 95% of the time (the only clicks are the T9 if you want it and the rez that only works after you die).  Other options to minimize redraw include Invulnerability (Dull Pain every few minutes but that's it, less often then Practiced Brawler) and Dark Armor (a click heal when needed).

[Haijinx]

Staff/Energy Aura 

 

Use a Tech Staff, and be all Energetic and stuff. 

[aethereal]

19 hours ago, ZorkNemesis said:

 

Thematically I consider Super Reflexes to be a good fit.  Given the agility required to twirl a stick like you would, it would make sense to have a character who's also rapidly moving and avoiding everything too.  Functionally it might be overkill since you'll be well over the melee defense cap with Guarded Spins but all the DDR SR provides will guarentee you'll only take melee hits if the streakbreaker mechanic says so.

 

The streakbreaker mechanic will functionally never say so.  If you have softcapped defense, an enemy would have to miss you 100 times in a row to get a streakbreaker.  That single enemy, not 100 attacks coming at you from a variety of enemies.  The odds of 100 misses in a row with a 5% hit chance are 0.6%.  So, functionally, you'd need to have an enemy attack you several thousand times before we'd expect to have streakbreaker step in, if you're at softcap.

 

Damage that you take when your defense is at softcap comes from enemies simply getting lucky and hitting you at their 5-10% hit rate, +to-hit, defense debuff, and auto-hit, not from streakbreaker.

[aethereal]

19 hours ago, ZorkNemesis said:

One thing you might want to consider, unlike other weapon-based sets Staff doesn't have an option for "No Redraw".  This means any time you use a power that isn't a Staff power you'll have to spend an extra second pulling the stick out of your ass when you resume attacking.  Reflexes will make you have to use Practiced Brawler quite often to maintain status protection.  If you pick a defense set that's less active you won't have to waste as much time with the redraw animations.  Willpower shines here since the set has no powers you need to click 95% of the time (the only clicks are the T9 if you want it and the rez that only works after you die).  Other options to minimize redraw include Invulnerability (Dull Pain every few minutes but that's it, less often then Practiced Brawler) and Dark Armor (a click heal when needed).

 

Super Reflexes is a very low-click set.

 

People get obsessed with putting Practiced Brawler on auto-fire, but you don't actually need to do that, and in fact it's likely significant overkill in most situations -- double or triple-stacking your mez protection and cutting into your attack chain.  I currently main a DB/Ninj scrapper, and I just hit my mez protection between spawns outside of rare circumstancess.

 

Certainly, I'd regard SR as necesssitating MUCH less clicking that Dark Armor, especially on scrappers or stalkers, when you'll be looking to have a 10s or so recharge on your heal and be using it a LOT.

[PainX]

for secondary something passive staff has forced weapon redraw everytime you pop a secondary power which can really get jarring in the long run

[SomeGuy]

I've done Staff/EnA stalker and ooooohhhh boy that was a LOT of fun to level up. The set just looks SOOO GOOD in action and it has a really fun flow. If you don't care about best DPS and stuff, staff is just amazing. If you do care about numbers and how it compares? Stay away, it really is dead last in numbers, and it is "best" on a stalker for numbers. And even then, number wise, it isn't good. But the set really does look and play great.

[StriderIV]

7 minutes ago, SomeGuy said:

I've done Staff/EnA stalker and ooooohhhh boy that was a LOT of fun to level up. The set just looks SOOO GOOD in action and it has a really fun flow. If you don't care about best DPS and stuff, staff is just amazing. If you do care about numbers and how it compares? Stay away, it really is dead last in numbers, and it is "best" on a stalker for numbers. And even then, number wise, it isn't good. But the set really does look and play great.

+1 to this. It’s actually one of the reasons I really like Staff on Tankers. My DA/Staff Tanker is one of my most played heroes, and his whole point of existing is to just hold aggro and never die, which this combo does just fine.

[Haijinx]

1 hour ago, SomeGuy said:

I've done Staff/EnA stalker and ooooohhhh boy that was a LOT of fun to level up. The set just looks SOOO GOOD in action and it has a really fun flow. If you don't care about best DPS and stuff, staff is just amazing. If you do care about numbers and how it compares? Stay away, it really is dead last in numbers, and it is "best" on a stalker for numbers. And even then, number wise, it isn't good. But the set really does look and play great.

 

Don't think its dead last.  But it is definitely lower down on the list.

 

KM and Fire Melee are def worse.  

[SomeGuy]

22 minutes ago, Haijinx said:

 

Don't think its dead last.  But it is definitely lower down on the list.

 

KM and Fire Melee are def worse.  

I have numerical and statistical data for all three of these sets. Staff is, sadly, numerically last.

 

I'm actually wondering how KM got such a bad rep here. Granted, I TOTALLY get it's a set that takes some mental work to get the most out of. Then again, there seems to be a lot of love for regen. So, who knows.

Edited September 13, 2021 by SomeGuy

[ZemX]

On 9/10/2021 at 1:38 AM, ZorkNemesis said:

One thing you might want to consider, unlike other weapon-based sets Staff doesn't have an option for "No Redraw".  This means any time you use a power that isn't a Staff power you'll have to spend an extra second pulling the stick out of your ass when you resume attacking.

 

I used to think this as well, but it turns out it isn't true.  The redraw animation does play first, but it doesn't actually add any time to the attack chain.  What happens instead is that the animation time of the attack you activated begins with the redraw and ends before the animation of the attack is finished playing.

 

You can see this most easily by activating Eye of the Storm without the staff drawn.  Activate the attack and then hold down the forward button.  Normally, the rooting time of EotS covers the whole spinning animation.  But in the case where you begin with redraw, you will notice you're breakdancing while sliding across the floor towards the end. That's because the animation (and root time) has expired but the EotS animation is still playing.   Perform this staff party trick while waiting with a team at a mission door!

 

If you had instead of holding down forward, queued another attack, that attack would have begun before the end of the EotS animation, interrupting it.  It's even weirder if you start redraw with a short attack like Mercurial.  You have to quickly queue a second attack but if you do it right, the Mercurial animation almost doesn't play at all because it would have animated in the same time it takes to draw the weapon.

 

The redraw animation makes it LOOK slower, but it reality is is not actually slowing you down or hurting DPS.  I believe the same is true of all weapon sets with redraw.  Choosing the "no redraw" option is cosmetic only.  It does not improve the actual performance of the set.

[ZemX]

On 9/12/2021 at 8:32 PM, Haijinx said:

Don't think its dead last.  But it is definitely lower down on the list.

 

It's more in the middle.   Some of the bad rep comes from a really outdated DPS spreadsheet that has Staff third from last in DPS for Scrappers.  But it makes no allowance for stacking Form of Body whereas it does count Street Justice combo level.  It was just never completed, I think.  Pure ST DPS is also not always relevant.  Also consider that spreadsheet has Claws dead last. 

 

A more recent analysis goes by experimental rather than theory-crafted results in this thread:

 

And if you skim through it, you see Staff is more middle of the road.  But also notice that the clear times for the bulk of sets except those at the very top and bottom are actually pretty close to one another.  In practical terms, Staff performs roughly the same as most other sets except for the outliers that are broken good/bad.

 

P.S. It has enormous AoEs on a Tanker.  uuuuuge! 🤪

[Without_Pause]

24 minutes ago, ZemX said:

P.S. It has enormous AoEs on a Tanker.  uuuuuge! 🤪

Partly why I think it plays better on ATs not named Stalker. Losing AoE to gain AS isn't exactly isn't by default a win. I think WP and Dark tanks with /staff will pair quite well.

[StriderIV]

2 hours ago, Without_Pause said:

Partly why I think it plays better on ATs not named Stalker. Losing AoE to gain AS isn't exactly isn't by default a win. I think WP and Dark tanks with /staff will pair quite well.

+1 to this. My DA/Staff tanker is probably my most played hero. Unkillable and an aggro machine.

[aethereal]

7 hours ago, Without_Pause said:

Partly why I think it plays better on ATs not named Stalker. Losing AoE to gain AS isn't exactly isn't by default a win. I think WP and Dark tanks with /staff will pair quite well.

 

If what you care about is AoE and only AoE, tanks are generally your best melee option.  But staff on stalker compared to scrapper is 2 AoE vs 3 AoE, and you get build-up for the stalker if you want to burst down groups with said AoE (and the build up comes back quickly).  Plus you can finish off the boss more quickly.

[Without_Pause]

In the land of CoH, x8 diff settings are king, so yeah, AoE wins out. That's why so see even on stalkers the popularity of Elec/shield.

[aethereal]

21 minutes ago, Without_Pause said:

In the land of CoH, x8 diff settings are king, so yeah, AoE wins out. That's why so see even on stalkers the popularity of Elec/shield.

I mean, I run plenty of characters who don't overinvest in AoE at x8 difficulty settings.  I think that having a good mix of AoE and ST generally makes for a more satisfying character than one who overspecializes in either, and think that people get over-focused on quantity over quality.  A staff stalker has a PBAoE and a cone.  Does getting a second, somewhat higher-damage cone justify losing both an excellent ST attack and build up?

 

I mean, the sad truth of Staff is that all of its AoEs have long enough animation times that they're mediocre.  But I'd generally suggest that if you want to AoE down a spawn, Build-Up, Ball Lightning, Eye of the Storm, Guarded Spin is at least as good as Eye of the Storm, Innocuous Strike, Guarded Spin.

 

Stalkers and Tankers are different enough that it's probably not actually the difference in the melee set that will sell you on one or the other -- and the Tanker bonus to AoEs is significant.  But if you compare stalkers to something closer to them, like Scrappers or even Brutes, I think Stalkers have the better set here.  If you do find that your two in-set AoEs aren't enough for you, rather than add a third one from the set, I'd suggest Ball Lightning or Fireball.