Sanctified Staff is crazy

[Kshahdoo]

It's power level is 5 + resolve so you buff your psyker's resolve and then one shot bosses with Emperor's Wrath. You can basically have unlimited damage, but I haven't had more than 500+ yet.

[Ninth Hour]

Originally posted by proton:

Boosting resolve is only one part of the equation. You also need to increase your psy rating in parallel through warp events or heroic acts for the multiplicative effect.
Also, target selection and enemy placement is important here, as the pain channeling / backdraft cascade can vastly increase the total damage, because backdraft will again proc pain channeling, which gets amplified by damage bonuses etc.

None of this changes the fact that, if we accept the damage formula at face value, minimum damage is 1. Even if you stack 1000% extra damage, if you low roll, you can get damage of 10.

And I have, in fact, seen ludicrous variations in damage, where I would be hitting one enemy for 80 and another for single digit damage like 7 to 9. I am not getting the consistent results of 1000+ that people brag about. Highest I've been able to get with Psy Rating 1 is 370. But even if I had higher Psy Rating, that doesn't change how low your damage can still be, in theory, if we go by the formula as written.

[proton]

Originally posted by TaKo:

Originally posted by proton:

Boosting resolve is only one part of the equation. You also need to increase your psy rating

psy rating is good sure but the biggest source of power here remains resolve

You need both and they're both multiplicatively linked. Increasing psy rating by e.g. factor 3 will also increase whatever insane amount of resolve bonus you manage to get by factor 3.
And since pain channeling uses the overdamage, this factor 3 might be essential to reach really high damage numbers.

Originally posted by TaKo:

Originally posted by proton:

There's no way this is intended.

its likely that a lot of combat-related bonuses and math was designed in a very disconnected way so a lot of math, once put together, allows for this silly nonsense

was this staff in the early access? was MT in early access?

Alone the fact that it is available so early in the trade tree tells me that it is not intended.
I didn't play early access so no clue when it was implemented.
But all other high end staffs have a fixed power level and they're still usable in the later game. This one really feels out of place.

[TaKo]

Originally posted by proton:

You need both

want and need are very different things

you dont really need psy rating above basic psy rating talents from levelling, more is better and means more dmg due to the multiplicative nature of the math here of course but you dont really need to be stacking psy rating when u can just be stacking reslve infinitely

[Elizabello]

Originally posted by Kshahdoo:

It's power level is 5 + resolve so you buff your psyker's resolve and then one shot bosses with Emperor's Wrath. You can basically have unlimited damage, but I haven't had more than 500+ yet.

Had 1-2000 with it. I m built around it but i did have a lot of hillarious 19 damage with a radius 1-1500. And no you cant 1 shot bosses with it. One of the bosses has 20k hp.

[Kshahdoo]

Originally posted by Ninth Hour:

It's not the staff that is overpowered. It's all the Talents that build up the damage multiplier.

I keep hearing about how great this Staff is but I can't seem to get it to stack the insane numbers that people are talking about- at least not on a consistent basis. I understand that you have to build resolve as high as you can and use stacks of Tactical Advantage from Master Tactician. Word of the Emperor, Steel Resolve, Still Mind, high Fellowship, Nerves of Steel, Linchpin, Inspire, and Press the Advantage are all ways to buff damage. And of course having someone cast Voice of Command and Air of Authority on you.

My level 20 psyker/officer/master tactician has base Resolve of 9, so staff has a power of 14. And Psy Rating is 1 (level 21 is when you can actually choose Psy Rating 2).
Unless I get stacks of Tactical Advantage into the 90's, the damage is not so great, so it's not actually the staff itself that is busted, It's all the talents that drive resolve that make it so, And you need to have all the right set up.

When my psyker was ambushed during a Warp event, there was no one to buff him, I made the mistake of not taking Linchpin on him (it was on my other officer). Without the necessary assistance to snowball his Resolve, he only had 14 to 17 stacks of advantage after a round. Nevertheless, I used Press the Advantage

Cast on two daemonettes, Emperor's Wrath did a whopping 6 damage to one and 67 to another.

Also, am I missing something or is the damage range too vast to be reliable? Here's the formula:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3129229446

that's 1 to [(1+Psy Rating) x Staff Power level].

At level 20, before I can get Psy Rating 2, and with a base resolve (i.e. unenhanced) of 9, the damage would be:

1 to [{1+ Psy Rating 1) x 14]= 1 to 28.

Even if you add 100% damage, that would only be 2 to 56. You would have to really stack your abilities and Tactical Advantage astronomically high for it be a huge killer.

Also, the minimum damage is 1! Which means that, even if you get 300%+ damage from Press the Advantage, with an unlucky roll, you'll still do single digit damage, which is something I've seen before.

Is everyone simply not getting the low rolls? If the formula is correct, you would be getting highly variable damage on your targets.

You're probably right, but it's easier to nerf the staff than balance all those talents...

[proton]

Originally posted by Ninth Hour:

Originally posted by proton:

Boosting resolve is only one part of the equation. You also need to increase your psy rating in parallel through warp events or heroic acts for the multiplicative effect.
Also, target selection and enemy placement is important here, as the pain channeling / backdraft cascade can vastly increase the total damage, because backdraft will again proc pain channeling, which gets amplified by damage bonuses etc.

None of this changes the fact that, if we accept the damage formula at face value, minimum damage is 1. Even if you stack 1000% extra damage, if you low roll, you can get damage of 10.

And I have, in fact, seen ludicrous variations in damage, where I would be hitting one enemy for 80 and another for single digit damage like 7 to 9. I am not getting the consistent results of 1000+ that people brag about. Highest I've been able to get with Psy Rating 1 is 370. But even if I had higher Psy Rating, that doesn't change how low your damage can still be, in theory, if we go by the formula as written.

The staff has an area attack, so ideally you will hit multiple enemies which kind of averages out low rolls most of the time.
But with a psy rating of 1 the staff is not broken at all.
To use the full potential you need additional items/talents which increase your psy rating and support talents like pain channeling and backdraft. The talent which increases your crit chance based on your resolve also helps a lot here.

[proton]

Originally posted by TaKo:

Originally posted by proton:

You need both

want and need are very different things

you dont really need psy rating above basic psy rating talents from levelling, more is better and means more dmg due to the multiplicative nature of the math here of course but you dont really need to be stacking psy rating when u can just be stacking reslve infinitely

Let's agree that it is a matter of patience. :)
It just feels like a waste to only increase resolve while you could increase both relevant stats in parallel.

[Kshahdoo]

Originally posted by Ninth Hour:

Originally posted by proton:

Boosting resolve is only one part of the equation. You also need to increase your psy rating in parallel through warp events or heroic acts for the multiplicative effect.
Also, target selection and enemy placement is important here, as the pain channeling / backdraft cascade can vastly increase the total damage, because backdraft will again proc pain channeling, which gets amplified by damage bonuses etc.

None of this changes the fact that, if we accept the damage formula at face value, minimum damage is 1. Even if you stack 1000% extra damage, if you low roll, you can get damage of 10.

And I have, in fact, seen ludicrous variations in damage, where I would be hitting one enemy for 80 and another for single digit damage like 7 to 9. I am not getting the consistent results of 1000+ that people brag about. Highest I've been able to get with Psy Rating 1 is 370. But even if I had higher Psy Rating, that doesn't change how low your damage can still be, in theory, if we go by the formula as written.

You can buff your psy rating as well, with burning and sanctify talents. Every heroic by your allies is +1 PR.

[Ninth Hour]

Originally posted by proton:

To use the full potential you need additional items/talents which increase your psy rating and support talents like pain channeling and backdraft. The talent which increases your crit chance based on your resolve also helps a lot here.

I would submit that, if you have to accumulate so many talents and items to make the attack that powerful, you deserve the result. For someone using it on a first playthrough, without any metagaming knowledge, it is a fairly mediocre weapon. And even with some metagaming knowledge, you still have to jump through the hoops to snowball its damage.

I guess you could say the same of any item but weapons are more straightforward and need less investment to be deadly.

[Ninth Hour]

Originally posted by Kshahdoo:

You can buff your psy rating as well, with burning and sanctify talents. Every heroic by your allies is +1 PR.

I thought Psalm of Heroes was completely nonfunctional? Was it finally fixed?

Even with high psy rating, you're just buffing the upper range of damage. It is still possible, in theory, to low roll. With the sheer number of rolls in this game, it is amazing how often a roll with less than 5% chance occurs. Unless you have stacked 1000% extra damage, you can end up doing just single digit damage with the staff, or something unimpressive like 15 to 20.

And the AOE is actually quite small. Decent range, but it is not likely that so many enemies will be bunched up in a way that takes advantage of its 3x3 grid. You could of course have Cassia move people together with Point of Interest, I suppose, but again, this adds to my point about the staff needing set up.

[proton]

Originally posted by Ninth Hour:

Originally posted by Kshahdoo:

You can buff your psy rating as well, with burning and sanctify talents. Every heroic by your allies is +1 PR.

I thought Psalm of Heroes was completely nonfunctional? Was it finally fixed?

Yes it was. And with the right party composition you can accumulate lots of psy rating very quickly. E.g. the master tactician heroic can be used every turn.

[Kshahdoo]

Oh well, gonna stop using the staff. I hate to use broken mechanics.

Cassia has been having 2-3 attacks/turn since I got her. I thought it worked as intended untill I understood it didn't. Now I do just one attack/turn. All other actions are buffs

[Seswatha]

Cassia can actually have multiple attacks cause Devastating staff lets her use her first ability for free. And all her forced movement abilities are not attacks even if you can make them do damage via Perilous Ways.

Sanctic staff is pretty weaksauce compared to actually broken dps as well.

[Ninth Hour]

Originally posted by Kshahdoo:

Oh well, gonna stop using the staff. I hate to use broken mechanics.

Cassia has been having 2-3 attacks/turn since I got her. I thought it worked as intended untill I understood it didn't. Now I do just one attack/turn. All other actions are buffs

As has already been mentioned, the Bloodhound Staff, which has the Devastating quality, allows Cassia to use each of her damaging attacks twice, although the second attack will cause an extra WP damage to both the target and Cassia. So you can use Lidless Gaze x 2 and then Held in my Gaze x 2 if you want.

As for the Staff, you don't have to stop using it. SImply use it without Press the Advantage or Linchpin if you think the damage scaling from those abilities is absurd. If you have decent Psy Rating, you'll still do an OK amount of damage on average, without any enhancements (compared to what your companions can churn out with weapons).

And as I have said before, if you roll 1 to 10, you'll be doing single digit or low double digit numbers for damage, unless you get your damage multiplier to 1000%.

[Ninth Hour]

Originally posted by proton:

Alone the fact that it is available so early in the trade tree tells me that it is not intended.
I didn't play early access so no clue when it was implemented.
But all other high end staffs have a fixed power level and they're still usable in the later game. This one really feels out of place.

It being available so early is not the issue. You can't snowball it's damage unless (1) you are familiar with how to abuse the stacking of Master Tactician abilities and the talents and items that boost Psy Rating; (2) you actually gain enough levels to acquire all the necessary Talents.

For many new players, the potential of the Staff isn't immediately apparent. As you have pointed out, you need a number of elements converging together to really make the Staff become absurd. Below level 21+, it will hardly do much. If you don't have Linchpin, Psalm of Heroes, or other ways to really pump Resolve and Psy Rating, you won't be getting the overpowered results.

And the potential to low roll and inflict an absurdly low amount of damage is still present.

If you choose to jump through all sorts of hoops to scale the damage, maybe you deserve the results of your hard work. Otherwise, the Staff itself is not broken by default.