Is there a Point to Charging the Staff

[Skorne Tet'Zu]

I've noticed when Charging the Staff it doesn't really seem to do much more than increasing the range by a few Millimeters; in both the Shift Attack and Jump Attack. And the fact that there really isn't much time to charge It During the Fight; I'm just wondering if there is more to it which I may be missing.

Advanced Thanx.

[wendigo211]

I'd have to double check, since I mostly use orb+dagger, but I think a fully charged shift attack inflicts a status effect.

[mhaeric]

Reaching 3 bars of charge will add the status effect associated with the damage type. This will apply shocked for lightning staves, chilled for ice staves, burning for fire staves, and necrosis for necrotic staves.

The damage also increases at greater than a linear rate. So fully charged with three charges will do more damage than three uncharged attacks. E.g. on my first revenant fight I was doing about 130 damage with a regular uncharged attack but about 680 with a charged attack using 3 bars.

One of the Evoker staff combos also make use of the charges. You can do two light attacks and then a charged heavy attack and it will have its AoE and damage increased proportionally by how many charges you have built up. The AoE increase is very noticeable. This is a very good long range attack that's both quick, high damage, and AoE but is only effective with full charges.

It's also possible to increase the charge cap which further amplifies the damage and AoE of the charged attacks.

There's enough time to manually charge the gauge between enemy attacks, but early on the amount charged is rather slow. There's traits you can build into to increase the charge rate as well as increase the passive gain when dealing damage. By end game the overall charge gain made it easy to fully charge my staff with 4 charges often still having time to get off an evoker damage combo.

[Skorne Tet'Zu]

Okay... Massive Thanx Mate... this is great info... especially since I'm finding myself using the Staff more and more, and less with the Dagger; (which I really do love, but the Staff is more effective with my Play Style).

One follow-up question however; How do you know how much damage you're doing? I've looked for an option for Floating Numbers (as I've seen/used on other games); so it's hard for me to tell how much damage I'm doing. I try to watch the Bar, but with everyone one else attacking it's hard to tell who is doing what.

Again... Massive Thanx for the Info; even if I can't see it... at least I know it's worth using. (Oh... and I did get the Trait which fills up the Staff Energy when out of Combat, so my opening move is usually a Sprint & Jump attack; sometimes taking out 2 or 3 in a single attack; now I understand why.) :)

[mhaeric]

There's a setting to turn on floating numbers in Settings -> Interface -> Combat Text. Set that to "On". There's three related settings just below that to modify how and what it displays as well.

[Skorne Tet'Zu]

Awesome... thanx Mate. I'm just about to start playing; that will be my FIRST Priority.

=) Thanx Again!!!