Burnt wooden staff worth it?
 

Been thinking about buying this. Just wondering from fellow mages if its worth it to use? That cast time seems atrocious. Seems almost always better to spend that time medding?

It's useful in fear kiting with another class or doing the last 5% while chain petting. Haven't seen much use for it in xp groups considering it is less than 20dps if chain caster.

^agreed

Great for soloing, limited use in groups depending on the zone and group makeup. If dps is lacking. Then spam that shit in the beginning...perhaps in a rut if ur oom and puller accidentally pulls too many and u need to burn fast, then use it then.

But beware there are some tricks needed to get the bolts to land!

Huh. I woulda thought it'd be an item that sees constant use from the moment you can use it.

I mean, you miss a couple med ticks to cast it sure, but that basically makes it a 330ish damage nuke that costs ~40 mana. Only 20 DPS yeah, but medding 20 mana per tick when your most efficient nukes are barely 3:1 damage:mana means medding is only worth ~10 sustained DPS.

If I were a mage, I'm thinking in groups I'd be managing pet (obviously), keeping mana around 70-80% to use for burst or rods or whatever when needed, keeping up DS, maloing when needed... and spamming burnt wood staff in the meantime.

for all the items/abilities that are broken in eq there are several that are purposely designed to not be OP. if the wiz solists icy wand did 330 dmg every 5 seconds mana free (instead of 30 or w/e it is) it would be incredibly OP. 330dmg for free is great even if it has a long recast time

I had one on my mage, but had a hell of a time getting the bolts to actually land consistently. It seemed like a lot of factors were in play, like elevation, your pet being in the way, players being in the way, etc. I just couldn't figure out how to get it to reliably work, so I got rid of mine.

It really does get some solid use at 46 when you can use it because you're likely still fighting things on the far left side of the HP curve. From what I've seen with the people who have used it, there are only really a handful of viable situations otherwise it kinda doesn't make sense to whip it out (heh):

- fear kiting with another class.
- when soloing using it as the final blow after reclaiming pet.
- post 50 xp groups. At 46 (base level) you're usually part of groups where the average hp of the mobs hasn't ballooned. As nearly everyone is overgeared, most fights aren't even really long enough to make super good use of it considering chain pulling etc...

Given the scenario you listed and assuming you're not strapped for cash, I could see you pulling it out here and there to add a little something to the battle.

any dd clicky esp like burnt wood staff is a key item to have despite how "little dps" they do. there will be a time when you will be very low on mana and your party is in a tight spot and you will need to use it to save your ass and you'll say "man i wish i had a burnt wood staff right now."

many items/skills in eq are about utility to really measure how effective they are (like coming in handy when shit hits the fan.) if you really wanna play eq by crunching numbers save up over a million plat and lvl/gear a warrior :)

not worth it unless you want to ez mode nuke shit at raids.