It's continually frustrating that inferno staff dominance has led to such one dimensional gameplay. Currently, there is almost no situation you would ever use Lightning Staves, and Frost Staves provide Minor Brittle which will have reduced effectiveness with the 7.2 Crit Cap as well as doing substantially less DPS than Inferno Staves.
There's a lot of factors to what makes inferno staff superior:
1. Ancient Knowledge provides 10% increased single target damage, which is the majority of damage and the most valuable damage. While Lightning Staff gains AOE damage, and Frost gains defensive benefit.
2. Engulfing Flames provides 10% increased fire damage. This already tips balance in favor of inferno as no other staff has that type of debuff.
3. Encratis' Behemoth provides 5% increased fire damage. Adds onto Engulfing Flame.
4. Burning is the strongest status effect. This certainly provides a good benefit to using Wall of Elements with inferno staves, but there are other sources of burning and it is the weakest advantage listed.
I propose addressing the first benefit by reworking the passive "Ancient Knowledge". Currently it reads:
Equipping an Inferno Staff increases your damage done with single target abilities by 10%.
Equipping a Lightning Staff increases your damage done with area of effect abilities by 10%.
Equipping an Ice Staff reduces the cost of blocking by 36% and increases the amount of damage you block by 20%.
I think it would be balanced better if it read:
Equipping a Destruction Staff increases your damage done by X%.
Equipping an Inferno Staff increases your damage done with damage over time abilities by X%.
Equipping a Lightning Staff increases your damage done with direct damage abilities by X%.
Equipping an Ice Staff reduces the cost of blocking by 36% and increases the amount of damage you block by 20%.
Explanation:
The values would have to be tuned to be relatively power neutral. The goal is to shift a lot of the power from Inferno and Lightning bonuses into a flat damage increase for all three staves, thus making other options more viable.
Frost staves should remain the most defensive option to keep their fantasy but not be a significant deterrence to wear for classes that specialize in frost damage like Warden.
Lightning staves would provide a small amount of direct bonus damage, similar to the champion point system, to to become appealing builds that focus on direct hits such as the class that gains bonus lightning damage, Sorceror.
Inferno staves would provide a medium amount of DOT bonus damage, similar to the champion point system, and would appeal to builds that focus on stacking DOTs such as the class that gains bonus fire damage (in 7.2), Dragonknight.
Ideally, classes that favor a certain magic type should be incentivized to use their preferred magic staff.
Wardens gain +10% Frost Damage.
Sorcerors gain +5% Lightning Damage.
Dragonknights gain +5% Fire Damage (7.2 Patch).
The remaining classes, Nightblade, Templar, and Necromancer should be able to pick any of the three staves depending on how their build is designed, rather than every class all going inferno no matter what.
Edited by LeonAkando on September 23, 2021 2:37PM