Talk to me about Staff Fighting.

[Eva Destruction]

I have an idea for a Staff Fighting character, and I'm thinking of making him a Stalker since I have several Scrappers and Brutes already and no Stalkers.  Is Staff Fighting halfway decent on a Stalker?  Or would it work better on a Scrapper or Brute?  And if yes Stalker, are there any secondaries that synergize particularly well with it?  I would prefer a "natural" secondary, but it's not absolutely required.

[biostem]

Staff fighting is an interesting set.  On a Stalker, though, you lose out on the "Staff Mastery" power, and are permanently locked into Form of the Body.  It's got some flashy animations, and even a ranged attack later on, which is kind of neat.  It's similar to street justice, in that there's a system of building up stacks of "perfection", then using an attack that removes said stacks for bonus effects...

[Zumberge]

Staff Fighting is fairly unique among melee primaries in that Stalkers have the better version of it compared to the other ATs.  You lose Innocuous Strikes (a cone attack with a mag 3 immobilize and speed debuff, which are... there, as far as secondary effects go) for Assassin's Strike, and you exchange Staff Mastery for Build Up.  Now Staff's gimmick is the three forms - Form of the Mind/Body/Soul, which equates to a damage buff, recharge reduction, and an endurance discount, respectively - but without Staff Mastery, Stalkers are limited to Form of the Mind, which means that you're "only" able to gain a stacking damage buff.  On an AT that's about dealing damage, when you also have Build Up.

 

So yeah, it's good.

 

The set's not endurance-heavy, so you could probably pair it with anything and it would work.  Most of its mitigation potential comes from knockdown in the later attacks, though Guarded Spin gives you a lethal and melee defense buff so that stacks well with defense sets until you softcap everything with IOs.  Alternately, it provides a very real multiplier to your survivability if you're using a resistance-based set.

[Eva Destruction]

I hadn't even noticed the lack of Build Up in the Scrapper and Brute versions, I just want to hit things with a stick.  It looks like I'm making my first Stalker then.  Form of the Body seems like the one you'd be using most often at higher levels anyway, since you can get recharge and end mitigation from IOs.

 

I'm kinda leaning toward Super Reflexes because I think it goes well thematically with flashy animations, and everything and its uncle has def debuffs in the newer content.

[ryokoryu]

read the 7 other posts asking literally the same question you are asking in this thread.

[Hjarki]

15 hours ago, Eva Destruction said:

I hadn't even noticed the lack of Build Up in the Scrapper and Brute versions, I just want to hit things with a stick.  It looks like I'm making my first Stalker then.  Form of the Body seems like the one you'd be using most often at higher levels anyway, since you can get recharge and end mitigation from IOs.

 

I'm kinda leaning toward Super Reflexes because I think it goes well thematically with flashy animations, and everything and its uncle has def debuffs in the newer content.

The general rule is "resist for Tankers/Brutes, defense for Scrappers/Stalkers". However, I think in this case, it might not be the best course of action.

 

All Stalkers are effectively AoE defense capped. That means Stalkers only require two positional defenses rather than the normal three.

 

However, Staff has an enhanceable attack that grants +10% Melee Defense (on top of the not-completely-meaningless 1.88% to all from Hide). This means that any Staff/* Stalker is already well on their way to soft-capping positionals and you might be better served by pursuing a resist-based set.

[Eva Destruction]

Hmm, Dark Armor then maybe.  It would fit the concept and I don't have one yet.

 

But Pines says you only get 1.9% def from Hide, including to AoE, which I assume is what you get when you're not hidden.  Is this wrong, or is the softcapped AoE def only while hidden?

 

[Hjarki]

1 hour ago, Eva Destruction said:

Hmm, Dark Armor then maybe.  It would fit the concept and I don't have one yet.

 

But Pines says you only get 1.9% def from Hide, including to AoE, which I assume is what you get when you're not hidden.  Is this wrong, or is the softcapped AoE def only while hidden?

 

Did you click over to 'effects' on Hide where it breaks down all the different bonuses by type? My Pines has the AoE defense at the expected value. In terms of the actual game, the power is +1.88% to all Defense, +38% to AoE and +3.75% to all while Hidden. The +3.75% is the only part that goes away.

 

I've actually been tinkering around with Staff/Electric. With Agility, I can zero out endurance bars every 20 sec or so and have enough power to run constant Whirlwind (which also routinely procs Force Feedback) while having capped positionals and S/L/E resist. However, it pays for all that control by only using primary set attacks (no pool attacks).

[Eva Destruction]

Ah, I see it now, thanks.  You have to mouse over the AOE def.