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ReckoningIceStaff

Staff is a type of magic weapon available to the Fateless One in Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. Using slow, sweeping area-of-effect attacks, the staff is a close- to mid-range weapon, good at dealing with groups of enemies. Being part of the Sorcery-based weapon set, they are intended for use by mage-style characters, and are bolstered by the Arcane Weaponry and Staff Mastery passives in the Sorcery ability tree.

Damage Characteristics[]

Staves will always have a base damage consisting solely of elemental damage and each element's damage-over-time (DoT) component.

They have a Slow attack speed, making them one of the slowest weapons available, only being faster than Hammers, and equal in speed to Greatswords.

They have Moderately Few combat moves available for those who invest in the Arcane Weaponry series of abilities, equal to the number available to the Hammer, Chakrams, and Longbow.

They have Moderately Low damage output per hit, being weaker than all other weapons aside from the Daggers and Sceptres. However, this is bolstered by the damage-over-time elemental component, which can potentially make staves one of the most damaging weapon in Amalur, falling just below greatswords and hammers. Edit: As the dot can't crit and can't stack, it's completely misleading.

Weapon analysis: Staff is a fairly sad weapon (even if not as sad as sceptre). While it looks cool and has some interesting move (for instant the one trying to group up the enemies), it is held back by several aspects, such as the fact the weapon skill is granting physical damage (which you will not scale), or the frankly low base damage of the weapon. You will also have to juggle with element-resistant enemies the whole game. The DOT component is also only useful for the secondary effect (fire to fear or cold to slow down) and will do pitiful damage, despite inflating the weapon rating considerably. It also require a secondary weapon doing primal damage to really compete, which is severely limiting your options.

Staff Abilities[]

The Fateless One can learn new attack techniques with the staff by investing in the Arcane Weaponry series of abilities, and can increase damage delivered by the use of staves by investing in the Staff Mastery ability.

  • Charged Entropy: Hold and release to slam the staff into the ground and release a radial elemental explosion. Size and damage can be increased by charging the staff for a longer period of time before releasing the attack.
  • Mage's Vortex: Attack while blocking to summon a small tornado at the feet of enemies in front of you, pulling them together while you take a spinning step backwards.
  • Arcane Fury: Attack -> Pause -> Attack to perform a 2-part attack that launches enemies into the air and away from you.

Abilities such as Blade Honing and Envenomed Edge do not work with staves, as they are not bladed weapons.

Crafting Staves[]

Main article: Blacksmithing

The Fateless One can craft staves at any Blacksmithing Forge by using an elemental rod and a shaft; rivets and bindings are optional components. With sufficient skill, mastercrafted staves that offer a bonus percentage to total damage can be created.

The Fateless One can also disassemble existing staves for salvage, recovering some of the above-mentioned components.

List of Common Staves[]

List of Unique Staves[]

Notes and Advice[]

  • Interestingly, the in-game model of every staff is slightly dependent on whether the Fateless One is male or female. The actual model is the same, but the position in which it is held is rotated 180° based on gender. (see Pyromancer or Archsage's Light as examples).
  • The standard staff attack chain consists of two sweeping forward attacks and a cone-shaped area of effect finisher. Therefore, they are much better against groups of enemies than the other magic weapons, the Chakrams and Sceptres.
  • Due to the elemental nature of staves, knowing the resistances of enemies is much more important than with weapons dealing mainly Physical Damage. Enemies such as niskaru tyrants are usually extremely resistant to fire (or occasionally ice), so keep this in mind when using a staff against them, as you may find your damage output to be severely crippled. However, the opposite is true as well, so using a fire staff against wooden enemies like Boggarts or Threshes will cause them to become vulnerable, allowing you to dispatch them quicker than ever!
  • The charge attack Charged Entropy has two release versions based on the amount of time spent charging, similar to the way Whirlwind works for Greatswords. The Fateless One will flash once the first level of charge is achieved, and can release the attack for a small AoE and moderate damage. However, if the Fateless One holds the charge until the second flash, the released explosion will be much larger as well as much more damaging.
  • The block-attack move Mage's Vortex is very effective at grouping enemies for subsequent spell devastation. Area-based abilities such as Mark of Flame, Elemental Rage, Meteor, or even the standard staff finishing move work extremely well with this move, so use it often when fighting large groups of enemies for massive elemental destruction!
  • The delay-attack move Arcane Fury is a great space-maker if one is finding a particular enemy too difficult to deal with. However, keep in mind that it is not very effective against larger enemies, such as trolls, jottun, ettins, bolgans, and especially niskaru tyrants!
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