Enrage can make the enemy's resistance negative. Effects like warm also reduce resistances. There could be other items and skills allowing to do so. You can also trigger additional damage effects like while using a fire staff against a poisoned enemy.
I played a fire/earth/warfare character with a staff and was managing to solo fights since level 4, although I used Enrage only on myself.
To sum up, staffs could be a really powerful tool if being used in synergy with game mechanics and especially against enemies with low magic armour.
As for the splash damage, I just did not notice it. It might have been an older game version.
Yeah, I don't mean that it is weak, just that it is weaker than the other weapons. If they are going for balance which it seems they are, then I think it should be slightly buffed.
You would definitely notice the splash damage though, it's really annoying.
CC has been changed if you didn't already know.. you have to be hit by CC twice for it to work now (to be stunned you have to be shocked first, to be frozen you have to be chilled first) that alone gives you some time to escape/prepare before being fully CCed.
Right, it must remedy it a bit to have that "double debuff" mechanic, however I think the splash mechanic is unnecessarily punishing. Why should I be penalized for hitting an enemy? You already have things like retribution and shackles of pain which work just great because someone has to spend skill points or action points to cast it, there is a price for that, the splash mechanic on the other hand is punishing a melee characters for doing what melee characters do. I gather that they made it to buff ranged characters or maybe nerf meelee characters or even add another depth to combat, I don't know, but it makes no sense to me as a mechanic.
