Broken Staves?

Are staves and wands broken? They do not seem to have any damage like other weapons and Ignite weapon fails (Target not in line of sight). And they are not the most attractive weapon either.
Any insights please?

 

Yup. They are not weapons as such. They neutered them a few releases ago into the quasi worthless junk they are now. Currently, wands reduce fizzle and can be enchanted to improve your magic ability.

 

Yup, don't hit things with them cast magic with them (Ignite Weapon is only good for melee weapons, so a wand won't be that useful, unless you are hitting things with your wand!)! A mage can be pretty powerful with a shield and wand. I don't like staves, two wands are better than one staff.

 

The only problem is that ignite weapon gates a good portion of the fire school. Really bad design but the devs haven't revisited it to fix that issue. Unfortunately, you'll be forced into melee magic hybrid for a bit if you want to develop fire further (blades has the only melee combo with fire I know of off top of my head).

 

Bludgeon's Knockdown skill is pretty great too, so if you use a mace you can keep all training within one tree! Swords is fun though! Knockdown with a wand is 'alright'.. but it's not a popular idea, using wands and bludgeon skills because magic is a lot stronger often. (but knockdown still is great!). Wands/Staves being bludgeon is a fun debate, but currently, I'm quite happy how its working for now. My hybrid switches between combinations of maces, shields, wands. Be a hybrid!

I think wands/staves are getting reworked next release or two, saw a post from Darkstarr (?) regarding that.. hopefully some variety and maybe make staves useful?

 

The only reason to use wands or staves (but you should just dual wield wands) is for the enchantments and mastercrafts you can apply to them which improve your spell's damage, your base stats, your maximum focus, etc. I wouldn't suggest ever using them for melee. Ignite weapon, for a pure caster, is a useless skill that you only level up for the attunement bonus and to get the skills below it. I leveled mine by repeatedly casting it in town in a deck specifically set up for casting skills that I'm leveling rapidly.