Proccing Out Staff

[00Troy00]

Someone told me that staff coukd be very effective if it was set up correctly with props. Anyone out there have experience with this?

[SeraphimKensai]

Take a look at city of data and the ppm proc calculator and you can find out yourself fairly easily.

[Carnifax]

I've done Sky Splitter on my Staff Brute and Stalker. Also did Assassins on the Stalker but that's irrelevant for you. Everything else I went set bonuses (fully Oblit in Eye of the Storm & Guarded Spin for example) because I wanted the set bonuses. 

 

Here's my Brutes slotting

Level 32: Sky Splitter

• [*] (A)

Touch of Death - Accuracy/Damage
[*] (33) Mako's Bite - Accuracy/Damage
[*] (33) Hecatomb - Damage
[*] (33) Hecatomb - Chance of Damage(Negative)
[*] (34) Touch of Death - Chance of Damage(Negative)
[*] (34) Mako's Bite - Chance of Damage(Lethal)
 

 

Given that proc chances ignore Tanker AoE buffs the best AT for a Proc-Staff is probably Tank, both because of the AoE and because you won't need to chase Def or other set bonuses as much (similar to how Defenders get a bit of wriggle room). 

 

 

 

[Yomo Kimyata]

I had a few minutes so ran the numbers on proc chances for a 3.5 PPM proc at varying levels of recharge for each power.  Here it is:

 

	Recharge
	0%	50%	95%
Mercurial Blow	23.33%	17.50%	14.81%
Precise Strike	41.59%	29.93%	24.54%
Guarded Spin	42.66%	31.09%	25.74%
Eye of the Storm	53.72%	38.17%	30.99%
Serpent's Reach	62.83%	45.33%	37.25%
Innocuous Strikes	52.81%	38.35%	31.67%
Sky Splitter	104.01%	74.84%	61.38%

 

Honestly, I hadn't really thought about it before, other than popping in a Force Feedback in everything that would fit it in (Eye of the Storm, Serpent's Reach, Sky Splitter).  It makes sense that Sky Splitter has a high proc rate since it takes about an epoch to activate it.  It's up to you to decide whether or not it's a better attack with or without procs.  Outside of that, I don't see a compelling argument for damage procs versus set bonuses.  Other than melee/AoE melee/ATO, Sky Splitter takes Stun and Knockback; Innocuous Strikes takes Immobilize and slow; Serpent's Reach takes Knockback; Eye of the Storm takes Knockback; Guarded Spin takes Defense; Precise Strike takes Stun; Mercurial Blow takes Defense Debuff and Accurate Defense Debuff.

 

In the past I would put a LotG recharge in Guarded Spin, Force Feedback recharge in Eye of the Storm/Serpent's Reach/Sky Splitter.  I don't see a lot of interesting stuff otherwise unless you want to damage proc out Sky Splitter as mentioned by @Carnifax.

[arcane]

Extrapolating from my experience with a proc monster Ice/Staff Tanker, procs will not save non-Stalker Staff from being lower tier at single-target DPS. Procs will make everything better though, and Staff is full of great proc opportunities. At the end of the day though, you’re still looking at a set that is a bit above average at AoE and a bit below average at single-target.

 

One that was not mentioned yet: if you choose to make Innocuous Strikes part of your attack chain (not sure this is wise on Scrapper/Stalker though), you have the same benefit as Cross Punch, Golden Dragonfly, etc.: being able to use Fury of the Gladiator -res in your attack chain.

 

As Carnifax alluded to though, you’re almost always better off rolling a Tanker if you want to focus on procs. Not just because of the AoE/radius buffs but because Tankers (1) get less from regular damage enhancements and (2) have to invest fewer slots in mitigation so have more room to offset the set bonus loss from slotting a ton of procs. For instance my SR/BS has so many procs that it would hurt for Accuracy and Recharge bonuses… were it not for the fact that I had the additional slots necessary to slot multiple full purple sets in powers I don’t even use. But that’s partially SR being beautiful, not just Tanks…

Edited May 5, 2022 by arcane

[Microcosm]

Staff is a super high utility set, and therefore a low damage one. Procs can help increase the damage, but it's not going to become competitive with the high damage sets. And it honestly shouldn't. If you want to get closer to the damage sets, as mentioned above, you'll need to run it as a stalker. This still isn't going to the be highest damage, but it gets significantly closer as you trade some of the utility (the ability to change forms) for build up, and one AoE cone for Assassin's Staff. The highest damage I've found in staff is to partially proc out AS, and heavily proc Serpent's Reach, Mercurial Blow and Precise Strike. Every other combination of attacks lowers overall damage output, procced or not.

 

Sky Splitter is a wonderful power, but only because it grants you resistance at full combo levels which is stackable. It is not great if you're chasing damage, at least not in any combination I have tried. It consumes perfection stacks, which removes the damage bonus they give you for the attacks that follow (including AS), and it also takes so long to activate that you aren't building as much Assassin's Focus in between Assassin's Staffs, which lowers the average damage of that power. You could let AS wait and execute more attacks to build focus, but any time that AS is recharged and you aren't hitting it you are losing dps.

 

One other note: I have found that Waterspout with Ragnarok and a -res proc helps with damage more than a snipe. I believe this is because staff doesn't have a lot of -res opportunities in single target damage, and it already has a ranged attack to take the good ranged procs that you will want to use. I haven't tested this with higher levels of tohit to boost the snipe's damage, however, so YMMV.