Hey there,
as I'm currently still in my Nightmare playthrough, I was wondering which staff would be the best to use with my necromancer mage.
I have the three schematics from the emporium, but except one they aren't even upgradable.
I guess that some of you have already found almost every schematic out there, so: Which staff (+upgrades) is the best and how is it obtainable?
It's very subjective based on what you want to do with the staff. You can still have a great staff even if it can't use upgrades if it provides the stat's and bonuses you require already. Personally I do like the staff plans purchased at the Black emporium the best. (my favorite being the one with the sun shape at the top)
If you are still scrambling for good upgrade schematics, then the Staff of Corruption is a great option for Necromancer. The new encore staff is probably better. Most players will say the Staff of Lovias from BE is best, but this is because it has upgrade slots. If you only have crappy upgrade schematics then the answer is more muddy. Furthermore, most like the Staff of Lovias because they can get a lot of crit on it. Necromancers rely heavily on dots, and dots do not crit. I'm not saying crit isn't good to get the occasional free spell, but it isn't as valuable for a Necromancer.
I do wonder if Walking bomb explosion can crit though.
Encore for Attack% and Wrath of Lovias for Critical Chance.
I have the Wrath of Lovias in use. How would I aquire Encore? It's somewhere in Trespasser, isn't it?
Also, what kind of schematics for masterwork grip upgrades are there? So far I've found two. One has spikes on it (how would you even use that without hurting yourself) and the other two spikes at the top which don't look that nice to me. Any smooth wooden grips perhaps?
I have the Wrath of Lovias in use. How would I aquire Encore? It's somewhere in Trespasser, isn't it?
Also, what kind of schematics for masterwork grip upgrades are there? So far I've found two. One has spikes on it (how would you even use that without hurting yourself) and the other two spikes at the top which don't look that nice to me. Any smooth wooden grips perhaps?
Yea grips etc do not look good which is annoying. For future i hope they go one piece sets.
Is Hakkon's staff really weak compared to Encore or Wrath of Lovias? Also Wrath of Lovias is still the best for Rift Mages to bypass the cooldown gate with Flashpoint right?
Encore is by far the best staff in the game right now stat wise.. well, as long as you don't care about aesthetics. If you're like me and do care about looks however, then I'll list the materials I'd recommend using for either a Staff of Corruption or Archon Fire Staff. (If you want a WoL build as well, let me know and I can post one, but honestly unless you don't have access to Encore, and you REALLY want Dorian to crit a lot without having to equip him with Mask of the Grand Duchess, it's not that great imo.)
- Staff: Staff of Corruption
- Materials: Dragon Bone (24 metal slot), Dragon Webbing (20 cloth slot), Great Bear Hide (6 leather slot), Everite/Stormheart/IDB (12 metal slot)
- Masterwork: Fade-Touched Hardened Gurn Hide (30% damage bonus if not being hit for 5 seconds) - Recommend not using this for Dorian, AI gets hit a lot.
- Staff: Archon Fire Staff
- Materials: Dragon Bone (24 metal slot), Dragon Webbing (20 cloth slot), Great Bear Hide (6 leather slot), Infused Vyrantium Samite (12 cloth slot)
- Masterwork: See above
- Staff: Encore
- Materials: Dragon Bone (24 metal slot), Dragon Webbing (8 cloth slot), Dragon Webbing (8 cloth slot), Everite/Stormheart/IDB, (6 metal slot)
- Ranged Masterwork: Fade-Touched Hardened Gurn Hide (30% damage if not being hit for 5 seconds) - Again, not for Dorian.
- Melee Masterwork: Fade-Touched Bloodstone/Pyrophite (7.5% damage per enemy within 8 meters)
- Staff Grip: Hilted Staff Grip
- Materials: Great Bear Hide (8 leather slot), Plush Fustian Velvet (3 cloth slot)
- Staff Blade: Dragon Staff Blade
- Materials: Craggy Skin/Lurker Scales (6 leather slot), Everite/Stormheart/IDB (3 metal slot)
(For Dorian, I'd substitute the CS/LS in the 6 leather slot for GBH for more crit chance)
Anyway, sorry for the lengthy response. Pyromancer is one of my favourite builds and I got excited. I used it to solo nightmare pre trials (with Blackwall for tank support) and it was soooo much fun, so I may have gone a little bit overboard with my response. Hopefully you get some use out of my ramblings though. 
By the way, regarding DoT, pyromancers do have some nice DoT abilities it's true, but you'll get the most bang for your buck (especially on an inquisitor PM) if you build for high crit damage, accompanied by at least 30% crit chance. The reason for this is that while burning/spirit damage ticks away, you should also be focusing on slamming enemies with the initial hits from fire mine, energy barrage, immolate, and walking bomb. That's where the bulk of your damage will ultimately come from, and why you should focus on maximizing that with a decent amount of crit chance, as well as as much crit damage as you can muster. :3
And yes @ Bigdawg13, the explosion from WB can crit.
Is Hakkon's staff really weak compared to Encore or Wrath of Lovias? Also Wrath of Lovias is still the best for Rift Mages to bypass the cooldown gate with Flashpoint right?
Yeah, 9/8/6 cloth offense with no upgrades is super weak. Encore's has pretty much as many slots, plus 2 upgrade possibilities, skyrocketing it's potential stats. I think maximized you can get something like 82 attack % out of it, which is insane.
Wrath of the Lovias is the best staff in the game if you're willing to allocate all your high end resources into that mage, (basically the Ice Dragon Hide from Hakkon and your crit damage % rings). If not go with Encore.
I like wrath ALOT. Like it's a great staff. But if your playing KE which is arguably one of the better... if not really the best mage spec. Do you really need the flash point proc that mcuh sooner.
Encore is amazing!!! the damage you get from it is taste taste. Then the party buffs are even better. Ever gets an attack speed boost. As far as clean burn is concerned this is probably the best thing you can do for your cooldown. The heal is nice though is maybe the worst one, and the elemental damage is a really nice party buff..
Back to flash point. I can see it for rift mages in geting those key skills off back to back, but as far as KE is concerned if you really wanted to a crit for something like firemine, you could easily force a crit with energy barrage/chain lightning with minimal crit chance increase required. While also just doing tons and tons of damage with encore.
TL;DR Encore is just too good and the crit isn't that important to make wrath worth it anymore.
I like wrath ALOT. Like it's a great staff. But if your playing KE which is arguably one of the better... if not really the best mage spec. Do you really need the flash point proc that mcuh sooner.
Encore is amazing!!! the damage you get from it is taste taste. Then the party buffs are even better. Ever gets an attack speed boost. As far as clean burn is concerned this is probably the best thing you can do for your cooldown. The heal is nice though is maybe the worst one, and the elemental damage is a really nice party buff..
Back to flash point. I can see it for rift mages in geting those key skills off back to back, but as far as KE is concerned if you really wanted to a crit for something like firemine, you could easily force a crit with energy barrage/chain lightning with minimal crit chance increase required. While also just doing tons and tons of damage with encore.
TL;DR Encore is just too good and the crit isn't that important to make wrath worth it anymore.
WoL is 16% better damage modifier at worst. You can get Encore's buff through a support mage.
For the most possible damage to get out of a staff, it's the crit build.
x2 Superior rings of crit damage (40% crit damage)
Dexterity focused Superior Battlemage Armor (47 crit damage)
Wrath of the Lovias (56 crit chance , 21 crit damage, 16% attack)
Superb Amulet of Dexterity (10% crit damage)
Mask of the Grand Duchess (15 crit chance)
This gives you 158 crit damage including your starting bonus, at 76% crit chance. And 16 attack of course. 158 crit damage at 76% crit chance is effectively a 120% modifier on all attacks on average. So basically a %136 modifier.
Encore gives you 82 attack %
Battlemage Cowl gives you 5% attack
Superior Battlemage Armor gives you 11 attack%
Superior Ring of Attack gives you 10% attack
Ring of Assault gives you 5% attack
Superior Amulet of Magic gives you 5% attack
You also have 5% crit chance and 40 crit damage which is effectively a 2% damage increase on all attacks.
That's only a 120% modifier. Also the crit build gets more out of the cunning and dexterity points you get for free, as well as varric's free 5% but I'm not counting those. But they do weigh in favor of the crit build as well. I don't really count the encore buffs because you can get them with another mage wielding encore as well.
Thanks for the detailed response!
Sounds like there's a lot of grinding to do in order to get those fade-touched materials among the other. Not sure if I have all those schematics as well.
But at least I know what I can do now.
Eh, small correction there. Avvar Twill gives +2 Willpower and Silken Nether Cloth gives +2 magic. Both are farmable.
Eh, small correction there. Avvar Twill gives +2 Willpower and Silken Nether Cloth gives +2 magic. Both are farmable.
Superior Battlemage Cowl gives you 10% attackSuperior Battlemage Armor with both Battlemage armor arms and legs give you 22% attack(without a masterwork boost).Equaling a 136% modifier.
Then screw the crit build. Ice Dragon Hide is too valuable to waste haphazardly. Better on your rogue/warriors.
actionhero112, I know we talked about this before but I didn't lay out the optimal gear with Encore, and the setup you showed is sub-optimal. It uses a "bad" ring and helm, and also I think the calculation for Superior Battlemage Armor is wrong (8 + 8 + 6 Cloth utility = 22 slots = 44 Willpower = 22% attack, and there are also 4 Leather utlity slots). Here's a more optimal setup:
Encore: 56% crit damage, 12% attack
Hilted Staff Grip: 16% crit chance, 11% crit damage
Dragon Staff Blade: 12% crit chance, 6% attack
Mask of the Grand Duchess: 15% crit chance
Superior Battlemage Armor: 22% attack, 4% crit chance
Superb Amulet of Cunning: 5% crit chance
Superb Ring of Critical Damage: 20% crit damage
Ring of Slicing: 5% crit chance, 10% crit damage
Base 20% attack, 5% crit chance, 40% crit damage
Total: 60% attack, 62% crit chance, 137% crit damage
Non-crits hit for 160% base and crits hit for 1.6*2.37 = 379% damage, for an expected value of 296% damage.
In the WoL setup, I think you forgot to include base attack, so at 20% base it would be 36% attack, 76% crit chance, 158% crit damage.
Non-crits hit for 136% base and crits hit for 1.36*2.59 = 352% damage, for an expected value of 300% damage.
300/296 is only about 1.4% more, so the average damage is pretty close. The Encore setup hits harder on both non-crits and crits, but the WoL setup makes up for it by critting more. Encore also has some buffs that you may or may not find helpful [Edit: Encore has the buffs, not WoL].
Remember that Attack is multiplicative with Crit Damage (see http://forum.bioware...at-mechanics/),so it's possible sometimes to increase your in-game crit damage by moving resources from Crit Damage to Attack.
Yeah I'm scrapping the build. I don't think it's worth taking up valuable crit chance materials. or a crit damage ring for a difference of 4%.
Keep in mind that you get extra points throughout the game from taking passives and doing certain fade related content.
Thanks for the detailed response!
Sounds like there's a lot of grinding to do in order to get those fade-touched materials among the other. Not sure if I have all those schematics as well.
But at least I know what I can do now.
Np! And as far as the fade-touched mats go, honestly finding them doesn't really take that long. Look for a pair of Gurns in the Hissing Wastes, save before you fight them, and then just kill, check the loot, and reload until they drop the mat you want. It usually takes me about half an hour to an hour of reload farming on console to find the 30% damage one unless I get really lucky. As for bloodstone, you can find a cluster of nodes in the cave in Emprise Du Lion, or in the Exalted Plains (although I prefer EDL since that cave has Silverite nodes as well which is a nice bonus.) You can find a ton of pyrophite early on in the Emerald Graves, and personally this is the mat I'd opt for since it will likely be easier to farm, unless you want the sweet crimson red that comes with bloodstone.
Anyway good luck. Hope you have as much fun with a PM as I did. 
Ah.. uhm... numbers. Yes, and percentages!
What about the Lyrium staff from Descent?
Not in the running becuase it can't be upgraded and it doesn't have enough material slots to make up for being un-upgradable.
I'm curious which staff would be best for a Qunari KE using the Cretahl Vitaar and Andraste's Sacrifice, as that's the character I'm currently planning on running. One of my big issues has been what gear to use, and the math here all uses non-Qunari characters, so I'm not sure of the different race changes anything. As for the Andraste's Sacrifice, I'm planning to use it as my amulet, so that blocks off a Crit or Attack oriented amulet, which isn't optimal, but should still be solid.
If you're building a Qunari KE I'd go with Rynas' setup above (if you're playing on console or prefer not to spawn the tier 4 materials he uses, then just go with the more common mats as alternatives), albeit with the Vitaar instead of the MotGD, and AS instead of a dex/cunning/willpower ammy. Your crit chance will still be pretty high, and the extra damage from the Vitaar will more than make up for what you lose from switching out the ammy.
If you're building a Qunari KE I'd go with Rynas' setup above (if you're playing on console or prefer not to spawn the tier 4 materials he uses, then just go with the more common mats as alternatives), albeit with the Vitaar instead of the MotGD, and AS instead of a dex/cunning/willpower ammy. Your crit chance will still be pretty high, and the extra damage from the Vitaar will more than make up for what you lose from switching out the ammy.
Anyone know if the buffs from Encore stack if you have two mages in the party equipped with one each?
Anyone know if the buffs from Encore stack if you have two mages in the party equipped with one each?
As far as I know they do stack when from two different mages.
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