Mages: Yay or nay on the Burnt Wood Staff?

[Thugnuts]

I'm playing through my first mage here, and wondering if this staff is something I should invest in? It's a a 13.5 second clicky bolt spell that does around 500 damage starting at level 46. Sounds alright, but I keep running into the following thoughts:

1. If I'm soloing with a max level, buffed, and armed pet and keeping him alive from one fight to the next, it seems like it would be difficult to outdamage him so that I get full experience. 13.5 is a long casting time and at level 46+, how many casts do I need to get off, especially counting for resists? If my pet is getting smacked hard and I need to heal him, that's going to make it even more difficult to get enough damage off with the staff before the mob dies. Using the staff in this situation seems like it would be less ideal than using a level appropriate nuke to guarantee full experience.

2. If I'm soloing via chain casting... 13.5 is a loooong casting time. How can I possibly integrate the staff into that scenario without fubaring my chain casting? I suppose I could use it for the finishing blow once a mob starts fleeing, but wouldn't it be more efficient to just use a fast casting lower level nuke and finish it off quickly instead of waiting for one or more casts from the staff, and possibly risking picking up additional aggro?

3. If I'm grouping, I could see it being somewhat handy in providing mana free damage in situations where it takes a long time to kill each mob. Otherwise, most good groups are going to kill each mob so fast that I'd have trouble even getting the bolt off before the mob dies.

4. There's also the stat loss resulting from equipping a 2 handed staff and losing my slots. As of right now, that would mean the staff's stats are actually -15 INT, and minus some hit points and resists as well. That's a big chunk.

5. And finally... it's a bolt. If I move or try to use it in twisty areas or multiple elevations... it's going to strike out anyway.

All in all, it seems like a lot of sacrifices to be made for a questionable return.

Is there something I'm missing here regarding the utility of this thing?

Any firsthand experiences you can share would be great.

[Kowalski]

Negative, takes to long to cast and too little damage for the time spent. I have one and don't even bother with it.

[Nibblewitz]

You initiate the fight with max mana gear then you equip the staff when you are a mana deficit. Don't balk at mana-free clickies.

[dafier]

Originally Posted by Nibblewitz [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

You initiate the fight with max mana gear then you equip the staff when you are a mana deficit. Don't balk at mana-free clickies.

^^

Boots off of Velk are REALLY nice too. 17 second cast though. Still, it's a free dmg spell

[Raev]

If you are meditating with C2, you'll get 32 mana per tick. Using Shock of Swords (ratio 3.0) you'll do exactly 16 damage per second. Using the Burnt Wood Staff you'll do 333/13.5 = 24.6 damage per second. Figuring out to make that happen is up to you!

[Thugnuts]

Originally Posted by Raev [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

If you are meditating with C2, you'll get 32 mana per tick. Using Shock of Swords (ratio 3.0) you'll do exactly 16 damage per second. Using the Burnt Wood Staff you'll do 333/13.5 = 24.6 damage per second. Figuring out to make that happen is up to you!

Interesting. I was wondering about the damage... wiki shows the spell doing 333 damage or so, but the page linked to the staff says up to 500. Thought maybe it scaled up.

Has anyone tried aggro kiting with the staff? Use sow/jboots, turn pet's taunt off, open with the staff, then run out of range and spam it until it's back in range? I wonder if it has time to complete before you get hit, like the Lumi staff does for druids?

[dafier]

You'd have to do quite a bit of damage to it, even with pet taunt off for it to not turn around on your pet.

Plus, you better have Expedience or Velocity for your pet if you are going to attempt it.

Over all, I wouldn't recommend 'kiting' with a mage in this manner.

[Uuruk]

This is a nice item on red where you can med while you cast it.

[Lowlife]

I had one on my mage, on red the long cast time is a huge liability.

[Tenloar]

It's a love/hate relationship with this staff.

The hate:

In groups this will rarely even land on the mob, mobs usually die pretty fast in pick up groups. And for the damage, it isnt worth casting.

The love:

Using this when I solo, like OoT giants, works wonders.

Send pet and chain cast this, mind you I use velocity on pet and I have Jboots just incase I get agro. But this really wears a mob down when you're soloing high-hp mobs such as the giants.