You can do much more damage with wands because you can actually attack from range and with staves the ability that you get with em is just not worth it, i don't see any benefit from equiping a staff instead of 2 wands, nothing.

Staves can take advantage of the "Opportunist" talent. Which can be quite big in some cases
With a stave, you can also attack from range (one time per turn, but if you are a caster, that's usually more than enough)

minor: If you put points in 2h instead of dual wield, you get more crit damage as well instead of dodge

Wands are hands down a better option in terms of damage, if staves are not good at that they should give other benefits, what you just said is terrible and not worth it.

This imbalance was mentioned in the beta repeatedly, and was ignored.

You can use some other rather interesting skills with staves though, like the Warfare skills. I have two points in Warfare and can use things like whirlwind, battle stomp, and pheonix dive.. and all do fire damage, benefit from points in pyro, and scale from intelligence instead of strength. Just noticed this a little while ago and am still experimenting with it, but it's pretty sweet. Vastly expands the potential spellbook for any mage.

Wands don't let you use those skills, because they're not melee weapons.

The ONLY way to use a staff effectively is to use it as a melee weapon... otherwise drop it. If you want to do damage switch to two wands, if you just want to use your spells use a wand and shield.

I don't even think two handers get better bonuses to make up for two lost slots.

I'm not sure I understand why people are thinking wands are so superior. Staves get larger bonuses (wands currently have +1 int max in my game, while staves all have +2) so they're fairly even in that regard. The only difference I see between them is that wands can do the "normal" attack at a range, while staves have to melee (unless they use the ranged ability).

Why does that even matter though? I don't think I've used my "normal" attack more than once or twice in the entire game, much as I did in the original D:OS. Spells do so much more, and they're not reliant on weapon damage one iota. If anything, staves give access to a larger array of abilities (which are reliant on the staff damage), and seem superior to me.

Well basically then staves are for "battle mages" or hybrids then because a ranged mage is much better with wands, really stupid considering Staff is the iconic weapon for a mage.

But how are wands better? I keep seeing people claiming this as if it's just common knowledge, but I don't see any reason why that is the case. I'm not playing any sort of hybrid either, as the warfare/scoundrel abilities all convert to use intellect and scale with your "mage" abilities like pyro.

By putting a couple of points into those abilities you lose a small percentage of your damage, and you'll need to put a few more points into memory to really make use of the added abilities (and take the accompanying int loss).. but to me it's worth it. Whirlwind can drop a huge fire AoE around my pyromancer, without damaging anyone friendly. Battle Stomp can do the same, knock down enemies, and clear away unwanted surfaces. Pheonix Dive + The Pawn + Elemental Affinity lets me teleport almost anywhere on the field, summon fire surfaces, move into those fire surfaces (for free), and now be able to cast fire abilities for a point less.. all for a single point. That's pretty damn hard to beat.

poison explosion wands are absurd early game, and late game water + electricity transform into a range stunner as if youre firing an electric discharge with every attack. Not to mention X2 stats.

[quote=Zherot]Well basically then staves are for "battle mages" or hybrids then because a ranged mage is much better with wands, really stupid considering Staff is the iconic weapon for a mage. [/quote]

Which weapon is "the iconic" one is up for debate.
In the world of Divinity, I would say it's a wand, after reading this thread
In Lord of the Rings, it's a staff - then again, Gandalf used a sword when fighting...
In Harry Potter it's a wand

I like staves better than wands myself, thematically, but every new fantasy world have a phase where I need to adapt my preconceptions.
I found it weird that a fighter had earth magic for instance
Or that you dual wield wands.
Lizards being nobility
List goes on... point is:
Calling it stupid isn't helping anyone. Especially when the argumentation for it being stupid is highly subjective.

Love the tips people came with. Warfare skills that do magic damage :D

yeah or elves eating dead bodies.. this game takes your preconceptions, bends them and spanks them on their asses

Also gandalf is the original battlemage, make no mistake...

You get access to Warfare skills like Phoenix Dive or various knockdowns also you can stack Crit damage with two handed ability and combo it with savage talent that gives Crit to spells.

On my Fire/Earth wizard if I manage to pull out spikes and fireball combo with some crits it absolutely decimates, easily strip all magic armor AoE from most targets in one combo and apply burn. He has like 30% Crit chance and Crit rolls per each AoE target individually so you will surely get crits up.

Lazer crit for example is about 400+ damage at level 12 and area is huge, way more than my Ranger can do with anything in AoE and Spikes/Fireball combo easily more than that with some luck.

you what? phoniex dive is usable even with wands

Bull Rush still works with Wand and Shield,but unlike the Beta where it dealt the same kind of damage as the element of the weapon it now deals damage to Physical Armor.

Just joined the forums so that i could add my comments as well. I went 2h and staves with high int for a skull bashing battlemage but something i noticed that has changed since alpha is that staves magic dmg type no longer applies status as it used to where it seems wands still do.
ex. You have a poison wand and attack a mob whos magic armor is down. you will apply poison.
in the same scenario with a staff be it melee or the staff of magus attack i do not see it applying poison.

Has anyone else noticed this?

I've come across a unique wand (gold item) sold in Driftwood that had +2 INT, btw, so its possible to find wands with more than 1 INT.

I don't know about that i tell you later since i do have a poison staff and i will test this but i can tell you that i was healing undeads when using it, will come back after i test this when i play.

Tried a melee "stave" mage and right now it is pretty damn terrible she was WAY better with wands...

While you CAN use Warfare skills with a Staff, it runs afoul of not being able to break Physical Armor for the various effects like knockdown and the like. So it's not AS good as it sounds.

Some skills in Huntsman, Scoundrel and Warfare don't care about your weapon equipped. Adrenaline can be used with any weapon (as an example).

Most Warfare skills require either a melee weapon (which includes staff and dagger) or a shield however. Just like most Scoundrel skills require a dagger and most Huntsman skills require a Bow / Crossbow.

Yeah it is indeed stupid that melee staves destroy magic armor and not physical armor thus making the mayority of the warfare skills useless and pointless.

Wands win again.

What if you had some staffs with physical damage? Like other weapons with mainly physical and a little bit of elemental damage, you could have the reverse for staffs, where they're primarily elemental, but have a little bit of physical damage as well.

You could also have a magic-less staff that perhaps has the All-In ability, like two handed swords and spears, or an equivalent physical-based melee attack.

Laughingleader ... I'm sure someone will Mod it in.

What I'd love (no clue how to mod personally) is something like the inverse of what you see on a number of magical melee weapons. EX: Level 1 Sword, 2-3 Air, 6-7 Physical.

But for Staff weapons it'd be 6-7 Air, 2-3 Physical.

Now if these could be made and added into the loot table, I think that'd make Staff + Warfare a truly valid option. Yes, you won't compare to a guy who is rocking the 6-7 Physical Damage weapon, but it could make the Staff a far more interesting and useful weapon.

I loved weapons with elemental effects in D:OS1, but in 2 they are often pointless. You are hardly interested in damaging both kings of army, it is not really effective.

I've been thinking about modding that myself, mainly because I like the look of staffs, and making a physical monk-type of guy who uses physical staffs to fight sounds cool.


I could even add a new ability to those special staffs (or all staffs I suppose, if requested) - one that does physical damage, so you could have the option of using the default staff ability to shoot at range, or smack someone close to you for physical damage.

I'm actually working on a mod that does the opposite - It adds skills that scale with your weapon damage / primary stat, but they do magic damage. So basically a magic knight. I'm thinking of adding a basic ability like All-In that will do magic damage, so you have something to use as a replacer for a basic attack if you want to destroy magic armor, but your weapon is primarily physical.

Don't see why its not possible, you can alter the damage type of weapons.

So if you want, you CAN create (in GM mode) a Wand that does Physical Damage.

So if it can be done in GM Mode ... I'm sure it could be easily modded. I'm trying to roll an item that does both magic and physical and seeing how that works. Seeing if I can modify both.

That may help with the idea of creating a Staff that does both Physical and Magical Damage.

EDIT: Magic effects can't be changed in GM mode (outside of raw stats). But at least it IS confirmed that you can change the core damage type, so a Staff that does pure Physical Damage COULD be made. Though it'd still require INT to use (though Modding could probably change that of course).

@Zherot
[quote=Zherot][quote=Inxample]Just joined the forums so that i could add my comments as well. I went 2h and staves with high int for a skull bashing battlemage but something i noticed that has changed since alpha is that staves magic dmg type no longer applies status as it used to where it seems wands still do.
ex. You have a poison wand and attack a mob whos magic armor is down. you will apply poison.
in the same scenario with a staff be it melee or the staff of magus attack i do not see it applying poison.

Has anyone else noticed this? [/quote]

I don't know about that i tell you later since i do have a poison staff and i will test this but i can tell you that i was healing undeads when using it, will come back after i test this when i play. [/quote]

Yes, they still do the magic damage type, but do not tack on a status effect (poisoned, on fire, wet, etc). Which if truely the case means i'm rerolling :(

Does Phoenix Dive creates a fire surface under you so u can pick elemental affinity for fire mage?

Seriously question, any reason not to use wand+shield on a caster?

Free massive armor (also good shield throw skill) and its not like you really should ever use weapon attacks on caster anyway, not unless you absolutely have to which you don't when you have a decent amount of skills.

Only time I would ever use a stave is for a melee magic build and that's it. Wouldn't use wand or stave to attack on a normal magic build.

I think it creates a fire surface around you, but not right under your feet.

But with pawn talent it doesnt really matter as you can move on the fire easily for free =)

But Executioner seems far more useful for AoE nuke Pyro mage. Maybe not an as effective starter, but at least it will be seeing plenty of AP+2. Since it will be teleporting most of the time (phoenix dive, spread your wings, netherswap, and so on) and mages are primarily ranged casters, the 0AP movement for repositioning seems a waste.

OK after finishing I have to say, Staves all the way, but very particular staves. There are staves with +20% Crit chance, you want those. By the end my wizard ended up with 84% Crit chance and staff alone gave 20 there.