Willpower vs Dark Armor for Staff

[TheGentlemanGhostronaut]

I'm making a new red side Scrapper and I've decided to go with Staff.  I've heard Willpower goes well with it and is rather set and forget, but Dark Armour would fit my theme well but I've heard it's incredibly END heavy and I have no idea how it is defensively.

 

Is Staff particularly END heavy?  Will it gel well with /Dark or should I stick to Willpower?

[jack_nomind]

Staff is very good with Dark Armor.  It has three stances; body, mind, and soul.  As you build combo levels in Soul Stance, it reduces the endurance cost of all powers, including DA's toggles.  One of the Soul Stance finishers also gives +regen/+recovery.

[marcussmythe]

Dark is a phenomenal and underrated set.  Underrated mainly due to end cost and to a lesser degree lack of KB protection.  IOs fix the later, Staff the former.  Its a match made in heaven.

 

Willpower is the quintessential ‘I just want it to work’ defense set.  Turn on, carry on, little attention required.  Given Staffs ability to switch stances, and the mechanism that consumes your perfection - Willpower may let you pay more attention to the Staff.

 

Staff lets you Dark Armor better.  Willpower lets you Staff better.  Which is your priority?

[Marshal_General]

Just out of curiosity, is there an armor set that is the jelly to staff's peanut butter?

[marcussmythe]

Just out of curiosity, is there an armor set that is the jelly to staff's peanut butter?

 

I dont.. think so, at least not mechanically.

 

Staff, with its fluid animations, mix of AOE and single target, and the flexibility of the 'stance' mechanic, brings -something- to the table to enhance most any set it is paired with.  This is I think a great thing - I like sets that pair well, IN DIFFERENT WAYS, with different sets, where each brings something to the table.

 

That being said...

If there was a single peanut-butter-jelly-time set with Staff, Id actually go Bioarmor.  Two DIFFERENT sets EACH with 3 different 'stances', basically 9 different gear-shift settings before you even start playing 'which Incarnate will I slot today'.  Now, this wont give you the radical play-style differences of, say, 3 different VEAT builds in 3 different build slots - but this is a lot of fine tweaking on the fly.

[jack_nomind]

Just out of curiosity, is there an armor set that is the jelly to staff's peanut butter?

 

Dark armor, easily.  At low levels, DA benefits a great deal from Staff's endredux.  At high levels with stable Endurance, it benefits a great deal from Form of the Body; which provides a combo-based damage buff to Death Shroud, an AoE -res, and a +res for self.  Staff, meanwhile, loves the mez and damage auras; it's not the highest damage set natively and really wants to have a lot of people in its cones.

 

To a lesser extent, Fiery Aura, SR, and Electric Armor; FA is a lot like Dark here but a bit more frantic.  The endredux doesn't help Fire quite as much (although it lets you take Blazing Aura earlier), but the +res really helps FA down the road.  SR meanwhile gets an early Parry out of the deal and a +recov/+regen proc, doesn't hate the +res, and offers a +rech which Staff very much wants to get its combos out faster.  Electric Armor combines a bit of both.

[Chance Jackson]

I just made a Staff/Dark Brute alt 2 days ago.

 

Imo a positional def boosting attack(Parry type powers) will always benefit a pure resistance set(FA, DA) more than a typed defense set(Inv, WP)

[Chance Jackson]

Just out of curiosity, is there an armor set that is the jelly to staff's peanut butter?

 

Dark armor, easily.  At low levels, DA benefits a great deal from Staff's endredux.  At high levels with stable Endurance, it benefits a great deal from Form of the Body; which provides a combo-based damage buff to Death Shroud, an AoE -res, and a +res for self.  Staff, meanwhile, loves the mez and damage auras; it's not the highest damage set natively and really wants to have a lot of people in its cones.

 

To a lesser extent, Fiery Aura, SR, and Electric Armor; FA is a lot like Dark here but a bit more frantic.  The endredux doesn't help Fire quite as much (although it lets you take Blazing Aura earlier), but the +res really helps FA down the road.  SR meanwhile gets an early Parry out of the deal and a +recov/+regen proc, doesn't hate the +res, and offers a +rech which Staff very much wants to get its combos out faster.  Electric Armor combines a bit of both.

Hmmmm what do you think is better, Staff/Dark for scrappers or for brutes?

[jack_nomind]

Hmmmm what do you think is better, Staff/Dark for scrappers or for brutes?

 

Resist sets are better on Brute, but this should work on either since you can build DA softcap with a parry relatively easily... Tentatively I'd say go Staff/Dark on Brutes, Staff/SR on Scrappers.  That's off-the-cuff, though.  Can't back it up with numbers, just an intuition.

[Chance Jackson]

Hmmmm what do you think is better, Staff/Dark for scrappers or for brutes?

 

Resist sets are better on Brute, but this should work on either since you can build DA softcap with a parry relatively easily... Tentatively I'd say go Staff/Dark on Brutes, Staff/SR on Scrappers.  That's off-the-cuff, though.  Can't back it up with numbers, just an intuition.

got ya