Elemental Staves: Panacea Or Snake Oil?

So here's a question, if the staves add 10% or 15% to a spell of the same element, what does that mean? For Drain does a Dark staff draw 10% more HP? For Sleep does it land 10% more?

Someone I know insists that staves add 10% or 15% magic accuracy to a spell of the same element spell. This seems extraordinarily hard to believe. There's gear on the AH that add +2 to magic accuracy and they're worth millions. The Novio earring adds +7 and people on FFXIAH say they are willng to pay 15MM to 30MM gil. There is clearly more supply of staves but it's hard to believe a regular staff adds +10 to magic accuracy or MAB. It's even harder to believe they do both.

For enfeebs or enhance spells, wiki consistently points out that the skill is the most important factor. Anyone find otherwise? I've found as an RDM that using +4 enfeeb gear in my main slot for a spell like Sleep II gives me noticeably less resists than using a Dark Staff (can't afford the Pluto thingy)

On another note, as a WHM I notice that Sneak/Invis/Deodorize lasts a little bit longer with my Kirin's Pole vs. a Wind Staff. For reference Kirin's pole has +15 magic resistance on all elements. Wind Staff gives +15 to earth and Auster's staff gives +20 to earth. There seems to be no information on hidden effects for Kirin's Pole I can find.

Clearly the staves make a huge difference during nuking but maybe not so much for enhancing or enfeebling.

It seems that the perception of staves bonus of +10 or +15 for enfeeb or enhance magic is similar to the perception of facing in a specific direction for crafting. A lot of people seem to believe it (there are diagrams even) but few people can actually come up with numbers or experiments that demonstrate the effect.

Anyone out there with any experiences they'd like to shout out?

This will be your single greatest best friend as a mage. Study it, learn it, do it.

http://kanican.livejournal.com/

In order for +4 enfeebling to beat +15% enfeebling your enfeebling magic skill would have to be horribly under the cap.

Try going to a besieged to skill that up a little.

Ya for exemple, i nuked a colibri without staff for 851 dmg. After on same colibri i nuked with staff (HQ) for 978 dmg... so it's maths : 15% of 851 = 127.65
851 + 127.65 = 978

So yes, staves add 15% to dmg (for HQ).

About enfeebling spell (like sleep) staves add magic acc not potency.
So with staves it will be less resist but not more effective (because 95% of enfeebling spell are based (for potency) with a difference between your stats and mobs's stats)



You probably don't remember but staves was close to 10 M few years ago and probably more... novio or items like that are really more hard to get so you cant compare it with staves ^^

(BTW staves DONT add MAB... on dmg, mab is X / 100 where X is the number of MAB you add. Staves HQ add + 1.15 on formula... that why staves > Laevateinn)



Wrong. Wiki say stat > skill for a lot of things as soon you have a minimum skill. I guess the only spell where skill > all are phalanx and bar-spell.



Ya, like Devek said, go skill up



Wind staff dont help for this spells so stop use it lol. After i can say you that MND dont help in invisible/sneak duration, i have a MND gear (~134 MND) it's totaly random...



Be carefull, this elemental resistance is ONLY for you and ONLY when you have this staff equiped, as soon you change, you lose the +15



just try this : go in dynamis and try to sleep a mob without a dark staff (or pluto). You will be résist 90% of time, and almost never resist with... realy it's not a believe staves realy add mac. If you are resist with it, it's because you still have a bad general mac/skill. Staves help, but dont do all ;)

Absolutely staves add 15% (or 10% if you're using NQ) Magic Acc and Damage. I have gotten up to sky, realized I've forgotten my Terra's staff, and sure enough, won't be able to land a single slow on any of the Gods. And I definitely notice a difference between NQ and HQ. I recently downgraded to a Thunder staff while trying to earn money for some salvage gear. After my first nuke with that thing, I was horrified and ran right back to the AH to repurchase my Jupiter.

The cost of staves is so much lower than items like Novio or Elemental earring are simple: theyre easier to get. Most WW's can sit down on a New Moon on Darksday and come out with at least one, and I've seen someone synth 3-4 Jupiter's staves in succession. Novio earring, however... well, when I finally get one, I'll let you know.

If you're getting resists with your staves on enfeebling magic, then your enfeebling magic is underskilled. Please remember, staves take a PERCENT, so if your magic is only 220 and you're using a staff, your results will be far lower than someone at 316 Skill.

And one last thing to note, Ice and Earth staves affect the Enfeebling ACCURACY ONLY. When you get to the point that you are landing these spells without trouble, trying swapping in a Mythic wand for para and slow (on lower mobs. Gods and HNMs, Staves only). While staves affect the accuracy, they do nothing for the potency of these enfeebs. MND makes them stronger, proccing more often.

Ahh how I miss the days of 10-20M gil staves...

This.

Thanks for the pointer to Kanican's study Vylandra, that's exactly what I was looking for.

I do notice that NQ staves give a lot less than the 20 to 30 bonus to magic accuracy that kanican cites for HQ staves.

My enfeeb is is 3 merits above cap. With gear (ignoring the main slot) it's 308. The mob that I sleep II better with a thanatos baselard (enfeeb 312) than with a NQ dark staff is Vile Wadwha in Nyzul 16-20.

It seems like at least in the +4 Enfeeb skill range the HQ staves are better but the NQ staves are indeterminate to worse than the Thanatos baselard.

My INT btw on this setup is 65+33 without food. Since this is below the 320/120 skill/INT threshold maybe I should consider raising my INT. Although that 320/120 threshold seems to be more about nuking than anything else.

Thanks again Vylandra!

Sleep II maximum duration 90seconds, getting it to land in the 1st place imo depends more on enfeebling skill, duration on M.acc and int. 300 enfeebling skill blm like myself may land gravity on say kirin um 80% of time but the duration it sticks for will be pretty low.

This is why i choose goliard clogs over advocat pigs and i feel ive got a good balance.

You ask, does drain draw 10% more with elemental staff um... to be honest i havent done enough testing for this but i know for sure MAB doesnt have an effect on drain/aspir or its not worth equipping. I often reach 160-180 aspirs in dynamis with the build u can see in my item sets.

Two pieces of gear i am unsure over at the moment are alkalurops vs plutos for dark magic and sorc tonban vs lappas/af1 for dark/enfeebling within temenos and dynamis. Although id like alkalurops for my 150int elemental dot build regardless.

if anything the staff would be adding 10/15% accuracy to "landing" sneak and invisible lol, which doesnt make sense anyways :p