Staffs

[Madhippy]

I just had a thought and I wanted to run it by anyone who would listen. Are Staffs really good weapons for mages?
Staffs (other than ones with special effects) do not amplify magic and spells, they can cast ranged attacks with an elemental damage but staffs dont have amazing damage.
Would it be smarter to give mages bows or sword and shield? Because you should only need Lore and Control *insert element here* to power spells, so arent staves without a magical boosting effect fairly useless? Like it looks like Eb would be better with a shield than a staff, her staff is powered by gravelight and her staff skills, but it doesnt power lore or gravelight

If I am wrong please tell me?

[Grungi]

Not sure about the auto-attack, but the staff based "skills" are Lore dependant and should grant Lore XP when used. If the auto-attack does too then staves would be more beneficial for mages than other weapons as they would facilitate more complex/powerful spells.

Edit: After a bit of testing, staff auto-attacks don't increase the Lore skill, it's only the special abilities from the Magic talent tree like Charged Strike.

[Madhippy]

Apart from Character skills you dont need a staff of any spells you create and many of those are very powerful. Now Eb doesn't have any skills that would increase her proficiency with other weapons but it may still be worth considering.

Ill have to look into it more.

[Ruinous]

I got on fine using a bow with my mage, just make sure you pick lore for your training on levelling up and you'd do fine with any weapon imho.

[Grungi]

Well, I do know that using (for example) a frost staff gives you experience in Control Frost, which is the stat that is partially checked to see how accurate you are when you cast a Frost spell at an enemy.

Using Frost Staff = Higher Control Frost = More Chance to Hit/Crit with Frost Spell + access to Staff talent abilities
Using Bow = Lower Control Frost = Less Chance to Hit/Crit with Frost Spell + access to Bow talent abilities

Some of the Bow skills are great (and the staff ones feel kinda meh) so you'd probably be more "powerful" going with the second option, so I suppose it depends on how attached you are to being "a mage" rather than "an archer who also casts spells".

[Ichthyic]

staffs are excellent weapons for mages that are not built to wade into melee combat.

use the light staves, as they only have a .5s recovery. some of them provide some very nice bonuses to your other skills too. I personally preferred the walking stick for most of the game. Staff of hours is decent too, though I think the deflection bonus on that is bugged. if it gets fixed, then it's quite good.

then, there are the melee magic users, and the heavy staves, while they have the longest recovery on any 2h weapon, also deal good damage, and many deal elemental or arcane damage base. combined with an artifact like Nightwalker's Boots, you can do some serious damage with them.

if you are playing a "pure" mage, I would recommend sticking with staves. Also, as noted in the comment above mine, most of them will train anothe rmagic skill whenever you use them to attack. which means you can train your magic skills MUCH MUCH faster.

[Grungi]

An additional side note since this post popped back up to the main page, I've noticed that the Lore gains from the staff special abilities seem to scale based on the amount of people they hit and whether they hit/graze/miss.

Way more Lore XP from critting 3 people with a Charged Strike blast than grazing 1 guy, to clarify.

Given that both Charged Strike and Cone of Magic have AOE and can hit multiple targets, I imagine that's a decent wedge of Lore XP you'd be missing out on throughout the course of the game if you choose to use a different weapon.

[MrMurLock]

Depending on the staff, you gain XP for its respective Control skill. Therefore in the long-run, using staves is going to benefit pure mage-type characters.

[Madhippy]

Spamming spells also increases control. I might be wrong, but I believe you only get experience from using your weapon if you arent using a skill

[NuclearSqworms]

I've found some nice staves that have +magic on them. Not just + control life, etc... but +all magic. So I guess some of the bonuses from staves is a reason, as well as the low recovery times for fast spell casting.

[OnlyOffensive]

I dont think for heavy magic users weapon in particular play any role, you will use your abilities mostly, their autoattacks will be pathetic anyway, but staves have good bonuses for magic in general.

[haplok]

I'd say the weapon Recovery stat is most important for a magic user. Then an Accuracy bonus, since it applies to spells also. So I think light daggers might be best.

But staffs can be useful for dedicated mages, as attacking with them will raise both the Magic Staff skill and the Control skill for their element.

[OnlyOffensive]

recovery is way overrated, especially when you can get points in quickness and cast haste before literally every combat, buff duration stops during dialogues anyway. Extra power from staff might be more powerfull when little recovery bonus if use other weapon. This game can be done on last difficulty with any weapon build, some are more powerfull, but ability management during fight and understanding of "usefull" magic works better than any stats.

[Ichthyic]

again, like all the other weapons, staves come in two flavours... light and heavy. light staves only have a .5s recovery time, and some of the best staves in the game are light.

so you don't have to worry about recovery times as a staff wielding mage, really.