Staff starter guide
From Duels Content
Contents |
[edit] Lessigfan's New Player Guide to Path of the Staff
Disclaimer - I am not a top player, so I can't help you be one. I can help you be an average player. This advice is very general and will lead to very generic builds. There are lots of reasons to deviate that will turn out better. Don't feel obligated to stick with this advice - go blaze your own trail! If you've been playing for more than a month or two, don't bother reading this - it won't help you. But if you're frustrated, you're having a hard time winning any duels, you just want a generic & decent build, or you're totally at sea - this advice is for you.
[edit] Generally
You have two major options here - staff focus, or wand mastery. Staff focus will help you play more defensively - you'll have more armor, resistance, and spare power for other gear. You can also do really high critical hits with a staff.
Wand mastery will help you play more offensively - you can have some of the biggest hits around. Some builds actually invest in both wand mastery and staff focus, then switch based on the opponent. This can be highly effective, but takes more judgment on when to use each, and more gear.
[edit] Order to getting skills
- 1st get staff mastery. No questions. If you want to try out the high intelligence fists/mace/dagger/etc - good luck, and you're on your own.
- 2nd get wand mastery or staff focus. If you do wand mastery, obviously you'll need a point in wands too.
- 3rd get either magus blood or item amp. If you are going to use magus blood in your build, get it first. You'll want magus if your build plans for duels to last 10+ turns. If you don't plan to use magus, get item amp. Initially item amp won't help much, but it becomes one of the most important staffie skills.
Next you'll want to do high path stuff. The skills you pick thereafter will depend on which, and how many, high path skills you picked up. Here is a brief rundown of what the skills are good for, and which ones to avoid.
- Mind amp is a must if you're relying on your staff for damage or you need really high intelligence for damage. This is an important all-around skill.
- Magus blood is good for builds that try to outlast opponents. With fast damage builds it isn't helpful. Again, you'll want magus if your build plans for duels to last 10+ turns. This skill is important for longer duels, but useless for shorter ones.
- Clarity is probably unnecessary if you only need it for wands, but lots of high path skills and actions are resistible and clarity will help with that. It is still a weak skill.
- Shimmer adds an extra defensive boost, can be helpful if you don't have staff focus, but may be helpful even then. If you have high dodge or high resist this will be less effective. This is a weaker skill as well.
- AVOID scribe. It is utterly useless in every way.
- AVOID battle mage. Unless you have a specific strategy to use it, the points aren't worth the benefit. If you find yourself with an extra point at the end, putting it here will give you maybe 50 more power, but generally this is useless.
- AVOID feedback, unless you have a specific strategy to use it. With the resistance debuff in wand mastery, feedback is quite useless.
[edit] Attributes & Gear
This really depends on the high path skills you choose. Very generally, you'll probably want lots of intelligence, perhaps some amount of speed & perception, and some stamina.
[edit] What if I've messed up already?
If you've screwed up your base attributes, it probably isn't a big deal. Unless you've put all your points in something totally useless to your build, you can probably make it up with gear.
If you've screwed up your skills, it may matter. If you've invested in good stuff, but in a bad order, you'll be fine - you'll have a losing streak for a while but level out of it. If you've invested in 4 high path skills or useless low path skills, a respec or starting a new avatar may be the best option.
The devs also offer free respecs periodically, which is very nice of them. Keep an eye out for those, you may be able to resurrect an old character.
[edit] Where do I go from here?
See the similar Mage Guide or the similar Druid Guide.
