Hey gang. First thread on the Spacetime Forums, so go easy on me. I've been trolling for a few days, and I wanted to get your opinion on the real dirt between running a Pure Mage Enchantress with a wand and an eye/bracer/shield versus running her with a staff. It seems like there are benefits to both approaches, and maybe some information which I'm just not clear on. I hope you can clear this up for me.

My understanding so far is that an Enchantress run with a wand and a shield (let's call it a shield...I know it isn't a shield, but it's just easier) does less damage overall, but affords your character more armor and stat bonuses in general (from the extra piece of equipment). An Enchantress run with a staff, however, is said to be able to do more damage overall.

It seems like there are a couple of different ways look at this, though. Currently, I run a Level 37 Enchantress, and I use the wand/shield setup exclusively. I have a staff as well which I regularly upgrade at the Consignment Store (every 5 levels or so if I don't find something), and Yanis' EXTREMELY NICE list of stuff is very helpful with this. Maybe my wand is just really good compared to the staff, but I've only noticed a 2-3 point difference in spell damage across the board between the two when I actually look at the Skills page with the different equipments. I don't really feel like doing the math right now, but it seems like my overall adjusted DPS might actually be higher with a wand in some cases, based on the additional critical hit bonuses given by the extra piece of equipment (constant use of Blessing of Might at Level 5 notwithstanding) and the rather nominal difference in damage.

Have you guys run across this scenario? Generally, I buy equipment which affords me a high mana regeneration rate, and I've noticed that eq like that usually yields a bit less damage than eq that is obviously FOR DAMAGE. The for damage eq, though, typically has crud for stats. It shouldn't matter, though, because I usually buy the same type of wand and staff to be consistent. What am I not doing right? Are the numbers on the Skills tab maybe wrong? Or is there not that big a difference between the wand and staff set up. I know someone charted it out...is that available anywhere? Sorry to be a pain, but this is driving me nuts.