Curious About Ebon Staff? See This!

[Kaziscate]

So for those of you who don't have an Ebon Staff I'm here to describe how it works and how effective it is if you are curious or planning on buying one.

The stats overall are the highest out of all of the sorceror weapons overall, so you are gonna get a much higher damage and the difference between this staff and the horrorific staff is massive.

The main attraction of the staff is its proc. It is essentially Curse if it was overpowered with a really good heal. The proc procs pretty often and it even procs on skill damage too (but not pet damage), so DoT skills work extremely well with it. The heal and mana restore is great. It heals you for like 150-300 health and mana for about every 0.25 seconds, healing you rapidly. The health regen isn't the best (that would be Shady and Surge for best healing), but it's a nice little heal and the mana regen makes sure that you are always full with mana. The damage reflection does extremely good damage. For reference, if an enemy does about 400 damage to you, they will take like 8000 damage. The enemies take more damage the more damage they deal to you, and damage can even reach 20k.
The damage reflection has a few downsides to it, which it mostly shares with Curse. Damage reflection does slightly less damage with damage reduction, but it isn't that bad, doesn't damage on invincibility (and damage absorbing shields like Cottonkill's AA or Grand Protection), low level enemies, and useless against stunned enemies. One more thing to note is that the damage reflection doesn't really reduce damage.

If any of the info is wrong, feel free to let me know.

[Bluehazee]

I'd like to share my opinion about this staff.
For me its kinda no sense that proc is based on dmg taken since most of mages skills have stun upgrades.
Im using ebon staff and i had to remove all stun upgrades from skills, also masteries like time shift.

If i continue using same skills setup that i've been using for years, with stun and root upgrades for better crowd control, i find that proc is almost useless and i only rely on raw dmg from weapon. If i stun mobs, they don't attack me so i cant reflect anything. So how proc is designed is against mage job imho. If only reflection from proc were higher (not like aegis but closer) maybe i wouldn't have any problem. But actually mages have to sacrifice main part of their job if they want to enjoy a bit this weapon proc. Also not always good for pt, if i run with no good geared players, maybe they would prefer me using stun upgrades and weaker weapon before my current setup and ebon staff.

On the other hand, i dont know why the latest gear for mage doesn't have %crit. Ebon rifle/staff doesn't have, new endless set lvl71 doesn't have and new tainted staff lvl71 doesn't have. I think it would be nice to have some %crit on all this gears so we can do some significant dmg while using lighting strike, is not doing much atm.

Anyways this is what i think about ebon staff and latest gear and would be nice to know the opinion of others

[Kaziscate]

I'd like to share my opinion about this staff.
For me its kinda no sense that proc is based on dmg taken since most of mages skills have stun upgrades.
Im using ebon staff and i had to remove all stun upgrades from skills, also masteries like time shift.

If i continue using same skills setup that i've been using for years, with stun and root upgrades for better crowd control, i find that proc is almost useless and i only rely on raw dmg from it. If i stun mobs, they don't attack me so i cant reflect anything. So how proc is designed is against mage job imho. If only reflection from proc were higher (not like aegis but closer) maybe i wouldn't have any problem. But actually mages have to sacrifice main part of their job if they want to enjoy a bit this weapon proc. Also not always good for pt, if i run with no good geared players, maybe they would prefer me using stun upgrades and weaker weapon before my current setup and ebon staff.

On the other hand, i dont know why the latest gear for mage doesn't have %crit. Ebon rifle/staff doesn't have, new endless set lvl71 doesn't have and new tainted staff lvl71 doesn't have. I think it would be nice to have some %crit on all this gears so we can do some significant dmg while using lighting strike, is not doing much atm.

Anyways this is what i think about ebon staff and latest gear and would be nice to know the opinion of others

Another thing I wanna point out is that warriors are constantly taunting enemies, so that's one more weakness of the proc.

So far, I like the staff and I think it's great for soloing and I don't have to use Lifegiver as much, but these weaknesses slightly make me regret selling my soul to get it. Maybe if the buff applies to nearby allies as well it would make me feel better.

[Obooo]

Hahaha, sounds like a good weap for warrior.

[will0]

Thanks for the guide ! very nice information ... some stuff i didn't know myself...

Personally the reflect idea is very good but it is very different from curse as per said. Honestly i think ebon aegis process should be mage process and vice versa the current ebon reflect process to get it to work properly mages needs to get the damage from mobs and it is kind of like mage needs to be a "tank" to get the reflect works properly which is not the main mage task to be a tank or taunt enemies.

Freeze / stun skills on mobs will stop reflect process to work as they are not attacking the mage (as haze mentioned), i think this needs a rework on ebon staff process i doubt sts will change anything to be honest. Adding DOT damage to the reflect will greatly enhance what the ebon staff work more efficiently like magma dot.

[Korabiv]

After using the staff for awhile here’s my opinion:

Obviously it has the highest damage in the game but it wasn’t overly noticable than other weapons. Personally, hex staff still works well on easier mobs and immo on harder mobs, but if you want pure stats, ebon is the way to go.

The heal from the proc was not too useful. Most people have auto pots on so the heal doesn’t have much opportunity and even then it’s not op. I had mana pots set on auto and never once used a mana pot due to the mana proc (wasn’t using lifegiver/mana pets).

As far as the reflect goes, I honestly didn’t notice it much. Partially due to the constant stun, freeze etc that parties are capable of doing but also because, well, mages aren’t supposed to take damage. Over all was disapointed with this part of the proc as I expected a lot more given the rarity and the price. Imo, it would be nice to rework so the reflect does significantly more or it procs a reflect that works for your whole party.

All in all, I wasn’t overly impressed with the staff as compared to the old fashion weapons (hex, immo, ds). I was really hoping a new op arcane would take over for mages but with all honesty, the old weapons work just as well. I even found old weapons working better/faster than the ebon staff, so hope sts considers buffing it.

Note: Only played in pve so no idea how it works in pvp. Maps that I tested extensively were: swamp, deep marsh, and esg.

[Kaziscate]

Imo, it would be nice to rework so the reflect does significantly more or it procs a reflect that works for your whole party.

+1 for proc applying to pt

[urmosvk]

Thanks for the guide ! very nice information ... some stuff i didn't know myself...

Personally the reflect idea is very good but it is very different from curse as per said. Honestly i think ebon aegis process should be mage process and vice versa the current ebon reflect process to get it to work properly mages needs to get the damage from mobs and it is kind of like mage needs to be a "tank" to get the reflect works properly which is not the main mage task to be a tank or taunt enemies.

Freeze / stun skills on mobs will stop reflect process to work as they are not attacking the mage (as haze mentioned), i think this needs a rework on ebon staff process i doubt sts will change anything to be honest. Adding DOT damage to the reflect will greatly enhance what the ebon staff work more efficiently like magma dot.

Do you really think, that ebon aegis works differently? Nothing will change if you swap these processes.

[will0]

Do you really think, that ebon aegis works differently? Nothing will change if you swap these processes.

did i say ebon aegis works different? It is of course different from ebon staff reflect process please read was discussed as i never mentioned to "swap" both process as current reflect is mean for mage to take damage which is not a mage job.

[urmosvk]

did i say ebon aegis works different? It is of course different from ebon staff reflect process please read was discussed as i never mentioned to "swap" both process as current reflect is mean for mage to take damage which is not a mage job.

your words: "Honestly i think ebon aegis process should be mage process and vice versa..."
Warriors will always taunt enemies as well as mages will always stun, freeze, distract, pull out etc...ebon aegis in platoon (random) is not as OP as you imagine. Wake up!!

[Kaziscate]

Personally, the reflect idea is very good but, it is very different from curse as per said. Honestly, I think ebon aegis process should be mage process and vice versa. For the current ebon staff reflect process, to get it to work properly, mages need to take damage from mobs. It is kind of like mage needs to be a "tank" to get the reflect to work properly, which is not the mage's task to be a tank or taunt enemies.

Freeze / stun skills on mobs will stop reflect process to work, as they are not attacking the mage (as haze mentioned). I think this needs a rework on ebon staff process. I doubt sts will change anything to be honest. Adding DOT damage to the reflect will greatly enhance what the ebon staff work more efficiently like magma dot.

Do you really think, that ebon aegis works differently? Nothing will change if you swap these processes.

Did i say ebon aegis works different? It is of course different from ebon staff reflect process. Please read what was discussed as I never mentioned to "swap" both process as current reflect (for Ebon Staff) needs mage to take damage, which is not a mage's job.

your words: "Honestly i think ebon aegis process should be mage process and vice versa..."
Warriors will always taunt enemies as well as mages will always stun, freeze, distract, pull out etc...ebon aegis in platoon (random) is not as OP as you imagine. Wake up!!

I think there’s some difficulty with communication here. I edited quotes to try to make it easier to understand. Here's different ways that I'm interpreting it:

1.Both Ebon Staff and Ebon Aegis should both trigger reflect shield on dealing and taking damage.

2.How procs are triggered on Ebon Aegis and Ebon Staff should be swapped. Ebon Aegis triggers reflect shield on dealing damage and Ebon Staff triggers reflect shield on taking damage.


I understand the part with the staff's issue being that the mage has to act like a tank in order to be effective.