Summoned: Staff of the Magi (and the rest of the FT Staff line)

[phroggonalog]

Summoned: Staff of the Magi
[MAGIC ITEM] [NO RENT]
Slot: PRIMARY
Skill: 2H Blunt Atk Delay: 19
DMG: 10 AC: 10
Effect: Flowing Thought III (Worn)
MANA: +50
WT: 0.0 Size: LARGE
Class: CLR DRU SHM NEC WIZ MAG ENC
Race: ALL

This is the final staff in the line of summoned FT staves which Magicians can summon. It is notable, of course, for the Flowing Thought it provides.

Unfortunately, I rarely have used any of the staves in this line, either for myself or for others. One killer is the lack of charisma on the staff: from level one you hear complaints from all new casters about how they cannot land their spells, and the overwhelming response from Dalaya's Beginners and /ooc is "pump up your charisma". With the all 3 staves in this spell line not only lacking any charisma but also being 2hb, you are losing two potential slots for CHA.

A partial list of items found to be preferable:
Staff of the Elements
Arcane Staff
Dagger of Direction

WITH

Shield of the Cunning Mind
Worn Goldmetal Lantern
Radiant Beetle Eye

and many, many more

PLEASE NOTE that I am suggesting a change not only for Staff of the Magi, but for the previous staves in the lineup as well -- I'm not comparing Arcane Staff + a fully leveled up Radiant Beetle eye against Staff of the Magi, but simply the Arcane Staff with a normal Radiant Beetle Eye against something like Staff of Runes, which is a super sucky staff with only FT 1 that you get AFTER Arcane Staff + Radiant Eye

Anyway, suggesting any several solutions which may or may not be balanced:
-Make the staves in this spell line 1hb instead of 2hb
-Keep the staves 2hb, but add stats which make them appealing
-Keep the staves as they are except raise the Flowing Thought a tiny bit
-Remove the +mana component from the staves and raise the Flowing Thought a lot, making them only pure mana regen items

Thank you for reading this and considering it!!!!!!
PS This is not a "Mages are underpowered thread" far from it I love playing my mage alt pretty much more than my main now, and I find that I summon a ton of shit all the time -- from Shard of the Core to Pet Weapons to Dots to Mod Rods to just about everything....EXCEPT THESE STAVES. So I just want these staves to get some love is all.

 

[Moraelintz]

Having played my mage (main) up from lvl 1 and untwinked as he was my first toon, I can say I was rather dissapointed in the staves as well. Leveling up I used the
http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Silver_Scepter
until I could obtain:
http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Staff_of_the_Elements
which lasted me entirely way to long. I used the Staff of the elements combined with the: http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Lecimka's_Soul_Shard

I finally upgraded the staff to a http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Poorly_Polished_Ruby_Scepter
when I was 65 and 200 ish AA's. From there I went to raid loots.

That is just the progression that I took leveling up untwinked and it seamed to work well for me, however it would have been nice having those staves if they were a bit nicer. Was always hard for me to justify losing my secondary stat piece, or the lack of stats on the staff for some FT.

 

[phroggonalog]

Having played my mage (main) up from lvl 1 and untwinked as he was my first toon, I can say I was rather dissapointed in the staves as well. Leveling up I used the
http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Silver_Scepter
until I could obtain:
http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Staff_of_the_Elements
which lasted me entirely way to long. I used the Staff of the elements combined with the: http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Lecimka's_Soul_Shard

I finally upgraded the staff to a http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Poorly_Polished_Ruby_Scepter
when I was 65 and 200 ish AA's. From there I went to raid loots.

That is just the progression that I took leveling up untwinked and it seamed to work well for me, however it would have been nice having those staves if they were a bit nicer. Was always hard for me to justify losing my secondary stat piece, or the lack of stats on the staff for some FT.

I mean I could see switching it in and out if a Mage is using a shovel to dig Tmaps but even then it is really easy to just switch back to 1hb + shield with those slots hotkeyed

Also good call on the Silver Scepter I forgot to put that one in and I elected not to put in the Poorly Polished Ruby Scepter because I figured it was a much higher level item anyway but yeah that is another FT item that makes the staves useless

 

[Moraelintz]

also: http://wiki.shardsofdalaya.com/index.php/Vingrin's_Wand_of_Animation is another quest that is doable at 55 with some help and has a great reward.

 

[Slaariel]

yea ft3 and 50mana and 10 ac is terrible at level 1

i agree that some of these are not that great but




really

 

[Crynel]

i mostly just swapped these staves in for FT on my caster alts while medding, occasionally used them to kill up 2hb as well

 

[Slaariel]

oops i guess i am assuming your premise is NOT that you are supposed to get a spell that enables you to summon your primary main hand all the time good gear at level 55

if this is your premise though i do not understand why would that bethe case

 

[Slaariel]

is the sword and spear of power good enough i mean it's not better than warpmetal plus a mage can't even use it!???

 

[Nuli]

Summoning that staff for toons outside of Blackburrow and Warpstone is about the only use I have had for it. I got the idea after reading 'How to Win Friends and Influence People'. Level 10 clerics get all giddy when you summon them the staff, and that is kinda fun.

 

[phroggonalog]

Sorry I guess I mean my premise is that I find myself summoning tons of useful stuff all the time -- except these staves, because at the proper level they are just underwhelming

Level 1's should not be using a FT III staff in my opinion, so if you wanted you could just slap on a higher level req or something IDK

Staff of Runes is a Level 24 spell which is FT 1 and something which is bad for the level
Staff of Symbols is a Level 34 spell which is FT 2 and in my opinion is also bad for the level
Staff of the Magi is a Level 55 (I think???) spell which is FT 3 and also unfortunately is bad for the level

If you don't want these staves in the hands of terrible newbies then put level restrictions on them (!!!!) otherwise I think it is very clear that they only get used very rarely at the level which they are obtained so some tweaks are in order

 

[phroggonalog]

oops i guess i am assuming your premise is NOT that you are supposed to get a spell that enables you to summon your primary main hand all the time good gear at level 55

if this is your premise though i do not understand why would that bethe case

Okay this is a very good point and to be even MORE clear I personally think (although it was not the only suggestion I gave) that the staff should have increased FT and zero stats on it to make it SITUATIONAL for cases where time is of the essence I.E. Map groups

 

[triptoy2002]

Beacuse of the fact that you can give Staff of the magi to a level 1, I can understand why you would want to avoid making it more powerful. On the other hand, having a 55 spell that summons an item that neither you nor your group mates will want to use seems a little odd. I support Phrog's suggestion of tweaking the staff line but giving them a rec lvl.

Something like:
Staff of the Magi
[MAGIC ITEM] [NO RENT]
Slot: PRIMARY
Skill: 2H Blunt Atk Delay: 19
DMG: 10 AC: 10
Effect: Flowing Thought V (Worn)
MANA: +80
Recommended level of 45.
WT: 0.0 Size: LARGE
Class: CLR DRU SHM NEC WIZ MAG ENC
Race: ALL

This might be a situational swap in at 45-60ish. (I tweaked the ft by 2 points, and the mana by 30 points, and added the rec lvl)

 

[phroggonalog]

oops i guess i am assuming your premise is NOT that you are supposed to get a spell that enables you to summon your primary main hand all the time good gear at level 55

if this is your premise though i do not understand why would that bethe case

I forgot also spamming this http://shardsofdalaya.com/fomelo/fomelo.php?char=gelu a thousand times I mean talk about summoning your main hand forever!!!!!

Here's another idea and I have no idea if it would be possible to implement it but what about a staff that grows with the magician's power??? Instead of a base FT, it could be a % rounded down to the nearest whole number based on mana/1000 or something? or maybe it could add 25% of a mage's current FT idk

 

[Rorne]

This might be a situational swap in at 45-60ish. (I tweaked the ft by 2 points, and the mana by 30 points, and added the rec lvl)

See I mean this is the prob with this kind of thing. I mean lets say due to the quick nature of lower level fights each FT is only worth much less mana than the standard conversion that is still a crazy staff for level 55 let alone fresh 65.

I agree that you shouldn't be summoning like primary use items for your level but there was a time when that staff was at least pretty damn good for what people had and same with the spear/sword of power, they have just depreciated over time because of stupid tradeskills etc so I mean I do not think some minor tweaks to summoned items to make them at least a little more competitive again is insane!!

ALSO: I am leveling up a completely untwinked mage with a group of other untwinked people and the only wep summon I have used AT ALL is sword of runes for my pet just because it's a minor rune proc and 20hp/5ac. I got an actual untwinked player to wield one ONCE before he just switched back to whatever he was using. If I was twinking I'd just buy two Citadel Assblaster Rods for roughly 8 million extra pet hp and hits for 100.

 

[phroggonalog]

See I mean this is the prob with this kind of thing. I mean lets say due to the quick nature of lower level fights each FT is only worth much less mana than the standard conversion that is still a crazy staff for level 55 let alone fresh 65.

I agree that you shouldn't be summoning like primary use items for your level but there was a time when that staff was at least pretty damn good for what people had and same with the spear/sword of power, they have just depreciated over time because of stupid tradeskills etc so I mean I do not think some minor tweaks to summoned items to make them at least a little more competitive again is insane!!

ALSO: I am leveling up a completely untwinked mage with a group of other untwinked people and the only wep summon I have used AT ALL is sword of runes for my pet just because it's a minor rune proc and 20hp/5ac. I got an actual untwinked player to wield one ONCE before he just switched back to whatever he was using. If I was twinking I'd just buy two Citadel Assblaster Rods for roughly 8 million extra pet hp and hits for 100.

one interesting thing and i know you wont believe me but it is true I have always used sword of runes and i noticed that my pet was doing significantly less DPS than another same level pet using dagger of symbols so i summoned some daggers and lo and behold dps went up again i dont expect you to believe me but it's true!!

Also if there was ever a time when Arcane Staff + secondary item wasn't better than the appropriate level staff, or Staff of the elements + secondary, then it was YEARS AGO. Using the "it used to be balanced" isn't a good excuse in this case because I honestly cannot remember in 4+ years when I would have theoretically used the staves

 

[Rorne]

Also if there was ever a time when Arcane Staff + secondary item wasn't better than the appropriate level staff, or Staff of the elements + secondary, then it was YEARS AGO. Using the "it used to be balanced" isn't a good excuse in this case because I honestly cannot remember in 4+ years when I would have theoretically used the staves

Well I mean I am saying once it was sort of good so it should be made sort of good again

I do not think some minor tweaks to summoned items to make them at least a little more competitive again is insane!!

 

[phroggonalog]

Well I mean I am saying once it was sort of good so it should be made sort of good again

oh sorry i did miss that my bad!

 

[phroggonalog]

Well I mean I am saying once it was sort of good so it should be made sort of good again

Also yeah it seems like after this small but decisive amount of feedback that these staves need tweaking because yes Slaariel some people actually care about mage summons since you know they are magicians that summon shit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[cornelweezy]

staves are great for newbs, terrible for errybody else. if 1FT = 50m, most 55s will be able to come up with 200m between their primary and secondary, after factoring for int/wis below/above cap + AAs if applicable.

I like the staves tho. Just like the swords and daggers of runes, they're nice leftovers of a time when everyone wasn't running around with 6k mana as fresh 65s from buyables.

maybe convert the staff to an aug ala searfire? iono if that's possible.

also, on the topic of summons, mages should get some summonable pet weapons that can rival or generally outperform the ikky buyables. It only seems right.

 

[Rorne]

also, on the topic of summons, mages should get some summonable pet weapons that can rival or generally outperform the ikky buyables. It only seems right.

It would be cool if the mage pet wep summons could scale per codex of power in a similar fashion to expable items but whether that would even be possible I don't know.