A Slave to the Staves -- Dungeons of Eternity

Dungeons of Eternity continues to be my go to VR game for smashing, bashing, plunking, and zapping dungeon baddies. I'm level 29 and while it does feel a bit repetitive at this point, it also feels great to discover some random room layout I've never seen before.  I found a room with several swinging blades I had never seen before and it felt like a treat.

What continues to be a mystery to me, however, is the drop rate of staves. I love them. I want to use them all the time, but also, they just rarely drop. Why? I thought for a moment I might have figured something out when a dungeon I went through had the prefix of "arcane" and in one run I looted three staves, so I saved the dungeon layout. Unfortunately I didn't receive any staves on the next three runs of the dungeon, so the mystery remains. It definitely would be nice if a dungeon's name prefix also indicated which kinds of weapons and gear you'd find inside of it.

There are other mysteries surrounding the staves as well. Each staff has a damage number on it, but from what I can tell, this damage number only applies to the melee part of swinging a staff at an enemy and the actual damage of the spell is very hidden. it's an improvement I'd love to see with staves: reveal to us exactly how these things cause damage or heal!

. . . and without further adieu, here's my collection:

The Melee Staff

This guy has no magic, but if you like throwing around broom sticks and bopping things on the head, then this is an incredibly underpowered weapon. It is LARGE, so it does have that going for it.  Chucking a melee staff around is pretty fun.  Nothing much to say about this one other than it feels like a bit of a dud. Would be great if there was some kind of Monk main build you could do with it, but I just don't think that's a thing.

The Fireball Staff

It's a classic and honestly, if it did more damage, I'd love playing around with this thing.  You can click to rapid fire it and that's the best part.  It's like a fast machine gun with no kickback.  Holding it with two hands helps aim it a bit better, but again . . . I have no idea how much damage the fire portion actually does.

The Shockwave Staff

This was the first staff I ever picked up and still one of my favorites.  It's the perfect cure for when you feel trapped and cornered by enemies that keep blocking your attacks.  Just a quick charge of the shockwave and BAM!  Every enemy that's surrounding you goes flying backward from the shockwave. It's so much fun to use.

The Force Staff

At first you may think this is a little bit like a single target Shockwave staff, but the beauty of this staff is that you don't have to discharge it like a shockwave staff. Just hold down the trigger button and run into an enemy with the staff and they go flying backward. It's an easy way to crowd control and get yourself out of sticky situations. I actually found a legendary version of a force staff, so I've added it back into my loadout at high levels.

The Chrono Staff

This staff is a really great debuff staff. When you shoot its beam at an enemy, it makes them go woozy from being slowed down and takes them out of the action for a few seconds.  This makes the enemy completely vulnerable to attacks. It's an easy debuff that works great.

The Gravity Staff

This here is possibly the most fun staff of the entire game. When your beam from the gravity staff locks on to an enemy, you can then rag doll them around the environment making them crash into walls, pillars, the ceiling, the floor . . . even other enemies. It's hilarious CC that feels super satisfying. Of any staff out there, this one makes you feel like an all powerful wizard.

The Healing Staff

Unfortunately I own one of these, but I've never actually used it in action, which is disappointing. I need to go into DoE with a group so I can play healer for them. The problem is that most dungeons provide you with a glut of healing potions, and so it's very easy to just . . . not need healing. I tried flipping the staff around to give myself a shot of healing, and it doesn't work on yourself, only others.

The Ice Staff

. . . I wish I had one to show off.  From what I have heard, it freezes enemies in ice and then you can shatter them with a second hit. It sounds awesome.  The hunt for an ice staff continues!

I suppose you could include in this list, the staff you use for marking enemies in the Soul Harvest instances, but that one is yet another mystery! It stuns enemies for a quick second as it marks them, um, and you can throw it, but it doesn't seem to really do any damage.

Happy Dueling!