Ghials Staff Question!

Jacado's Staff

Unique Weapon details
Linked attribute: Death Magic
Damage type: Dark
Dropped by: Jacado the Putrid




A Unique staff, dropped by Jacado the Putrid on level 1 of the Heart of the Shiverpeaks dungeon.

[edit] Weapon stats
Energy +10
Dark damage 11-22 (req. 9 Death Magic)
Halves casting time of Death Magic spells (Chance: 20%)
Halves skill recharge of spells (Chance: 20%)
Death Magic +1 (20% Chance while using skills)
Health +30

There is also this option in Green Not sure the going rate on it

Nice Staff how much would it cost?

Ahhhh the endless lower hp on MM's is better or not debate...

My personal opinion on MM health is that it's better to have it a little higher than much lower. Having seen people running around with 2 sup runes and a very low overall health as a result I've come to the conclusion that whereas it may cost less energy to heal them, it also costs more energy to rez them again after having just healed the rest of the party more due to a rampaging minion army.

Seriously, the lower your health, the more tempting a target you are for the enemy and sadly unlike the monk you can't hang all the way at the back, where it's safest, or your minions won't attack, plus you're not in range of most available corpses.

Overall the Nightbringer is a nice staff, so long as you run it with a sup death your health still is pretty low.

That's right, you don't. But it does not follow that +30 on a staff is a good mod because of it. You would have to be running two sup runes plus a whole bunch of other non-survivor/vitae insignias/runes before your health would be so low that adding 30 hp would be a good idea. What's more, if you were in a situation where you wanted to add life, you could almost certainly get a better tradeoff changing a couple non-survivor/vitae insignias/runes to survivor/vitae insignias/runes than giving up your staff suffix slot.

In almost every conceivable situation, a +30 hp staff mod is going to be a detriment to getting your life total where you want it to be, not an aid.

There's precisely one: Taste if Death. And it stinks as a reliable self-heal for maintaining a minion army. That whole killing a minion thing is kinda counterproductive. It's only useful as an emergency "oh shit" self-heal if you're not so good at staying out of aggro.

The sac on BotM does NOT vary with your rank in death magic. You might get a minion heal for 127 instead of 122, but that sac ALWAYS remains the same at 5% + 2% per minion. Except for Dark Aura (which you shouldn't be using anyway), there is NEVER a penalty for having +1 death magic.

That's right. The fact that I disagree with you does not mean that you don't know what you're talking about. It's you not knowing what you're talking about that means you don't know what you're talking about.

Those are Minion Bomber skills, not Minion Master skills.

While somewhat helpful, longer enchant duration isn't that useful for a MB either, because you should be following up JB+DN with either Taste of Death or Putrid Flesh almost immediately. If you don't want to use +1 DM on your MB, you'd be better served with HSR to increase the recycle rate on your slowest core skill, JB.

This is wrong. AotL is actually hurt by a longer duration. Here's why: Even if you recast it, you still get the huge heal when the first copy would normally end if you hadn't recast it. So you should be recasting AotL on the recharge to reap a stream of huge, energy-efficient heals every 22 sec. You'd be an idiot not to. Once you're casting on the recharge, all a longer duration does is delay the arrival of the first heal in the stream by 8 sec. No good. If you wanted a weapon mod to help you with AotL, go for HSR.

+30 health is not that big of a deal when talking about life sacrifice. Blood of the Master has a 25% sacrifice with 10 minions. So lets look at a character with max health, Superior Vigor, Superior Death, and no other health bonuses from anything but the weapon.

480 + 50 - 75 = 455 health without the +30 from a weapon.
455 + 30 = 485 with the +30 from a weapon.

Assuming you have max health when you use Blood of the Master, the sacrifice without +30 comes to:

455 x 0.25 = 113.75 (114 rounded)

With the weapon equipped, it is:

485 x 0.25 = 121.25 (121 rounded)

That is only a difference of 7 health. If you can't handle the extra 7 health sacrificed, you have other problems. A self heal that doesn't provide an extra 7 health won't be the end of you except in rare cases.

It does make a difference, but such a small one, that it isn't something to worry about. I would look more into the fact that the +30 health will keep you from being targeted, or that a different mod (+1 attribute, +20% enchants, etc.) do more for your build.

There is also Feast for the Dead (I like this one better as it heals the rest of your minnions and face it if you are using self heal you probably hadn't used BoTM lately cause you were getting hammered)...so there are 2 that exploit minnions, but there is also Consume Corpse and Soul Feast that could be used as heal on mm if corpse are around and if not then there is Taste of Pain. I am not saying that these are great heals but just that there is more than one way to offset BoTM saccing...also you can have a secondary with a heal in it if needed

Stop beaing an ass you are not always right either as I have just proven.

In either case you are too high.

Read the description for Feast for the Dead again. It doesn't heal you.

[Edit: Edit wars:
If you are using your self-heal, that should mean that your monk has become busy saving other party members and you now need to "engage solo mode" and cover your own sac costs, nothing more. It shouldn't mean that you're getting hammered. If you are ever getting hammered as a MM, that means you are doing something wrong and need to learn to stick to the backline better.

And FftD is still not a self-heal.]

There's dozens of ways to offset your life sacs. Though most of them are bad, and all of them are very energy inefficient compared to what your monk can do when things are going well. But it's when things aren't going well and the monk isn't able to babysit you that your self-heal matters. Having your monk and your MM fail at the same time because you made a poor choice of self-heal or insisted on a life total higher than your self-heal could support is a recipe for disaster. Oddly enough, all 3 of those suggestions fall on the bad side self-heal options spectrum.

To avoid repetitive quote wars, anyone who wants to "debate" MM self-heals should go read this thread before further posting. (Please bear in mind that the figures for mystic regen haven't been updated since the last nerf.)

Aura of the Lich - If you aren't using Jagged Bones or Order of Undeath, you should be using this. The Flesh Golem is a noob. EDIT: I had not considered the fact that extending the length of AotL reduces the frequency of its big heal. I guess you need to decide whether you want to get the heal more often or have to recast AotL less often. As someone who mostly monks I prefer more on-demand heals, and am inclined to keep AotL safely at the bottom of a nice thick buff stack for as long as possible, but this is largely a personal preference matter.

Dark Bond - You need a really good reason not to bring this.

Infuse Condition - Ditto.

Verata's Aura - If you know you're going to need it, you're REALLY going to need it, and for as long as possible.

Other enchantments - often MMs will use their steady stream of Soul Reaping energy to power other skills, for example Protective Spirit and Aegis to help out the monk.

Minions are great because you can have 10 of them, not because you can make 2 of those 10 a tiny bit stronger. The minions come from the MM, and a lot of the MM's strength comes from enchantments. I believe that consistently getting more mileage from enchantments is better than randomly making a spell incrementally more powerful.

In any case, both +1 and 20% enchanting are better choices than +health.

Quite the opposite. You'd need a really good reason to bring one of these. As a PvE MM, you should be keeping to the backline and you should not be taking hits or conditions often enough for either of these skills to be worth a skillslot. If you are, you need to work on improving your positioning and battlefield awareness, not compensating by wasting skillslots on defensive skills you shouldn't need. The best reason to consider using either is as a cheap proc for mystic regen.

(edit: Total tangent here, while it may be a poor choice for a MM, Infuse Condition rocks socks for MB's in combination with the recently upgraded Foul Feast. Since you're going to be detonating the little buggers anyway, it doesn't matter one bit how heavy you stack conditions on your minions as a MB. It's like conditions just disappear off your whole party into a black whole.)

If you're losing the race to the corpse in NM, you need to get a bloodstained insignia. If you're losing the race to the corpse in HM, you should really consider not using a MM in that area at all.

I would not preface that with "often." Only if you're using AotL for your self heal will you have enough attribute points left to spec into prot after speccing 16 DM plus SR and your self-heal's attribute.

You seem to have left out the two best arguments for using a 20% enchant mod: (1) Masochism, and (2) Mystic Regeneration. Both of these are skills that you could really expect to see on a well-built, mainline MM (unlike PS or Aegis or Dark Bond or Infuse) and both benefit nicely from the duration increase.

I agree.

You missed the whole point. Here, I'll give you new numbers to help you understand what little difference 30 health makes. This time we will give the person 2 Superior Runes (Death and Soul Reaping).

455 - 75 = 380
380 x 0.25 = 95

485 - 75 = 410
410 x 0.25 = 102.5 (103)

Sacrifice difference of 8. So what is the problem if your self heal doesn't give you 8 more health?

Dude - you bring Verata's Aura when you know the OTHER guy has Verata's Aura. To get the minions you've already made back after he steals them all.

just to get back on topic, i made my own staff, and bought the +1 every 20% mod for about 4 or 5k,

Thanks everyone for your help now i dont have to waste 20k on a staff when i can make one for less then 10k!

1. You've reached the point where you're no longer saying that +30 is "good," but merely "not that bad." Even if the 8 hp difference were trivial, that wouldn't be a good reason to give up an affirmatively good staff mod in favor of one that's merely "not that bad."

2. To see why that difference of 8 hp is far from trivial, do this: The next time you play a long mission, count how many times you use BotM. Then multiply by 8. That's how much life you're sacrificing for no reason because of a bad weapon mod. Bet it's a couple thousand, isn't it? Now prorate that against your self-heal. That's how much energy you're spending to make up for your bad weapon mod. That energy becomes even more important when the energy you need to pay to heal that extra sac takes you from being able to maintain your army indefinitely into the red where you're going to bottom out your energy and lose minions.

AB much? V's Aura is a waste in PvE. And MM's are a joke in every other PvP arena. But I suppose V's Aura is worthwhile in AB. Though you'd already probably be running 20% enchant for mystic regen anyway.

If you don't like being criticized for giving bad advice, don't give bad advice. You are certainly entitled to your opinion, no matter how misguided it may be. But when you give people "advice" that will leave them worse off than if you had said nothing, I'm not going to refrain from saying that you're dead wrong because it might hurt your feelings.

The fact of the matter is that 20% +1 DM is better than +30hp, 20% enchant is better than +30hp, and even using no staff suffix at all is better than +30hp.

Chthon, here is what I run, with numbers to show why +30 won't matter, and a mod of 20% enchanting, +1 attribute, or +armor could be better. It is an opinion, so I won't say you are wrong, but I will say you over exaggerate the problem a +30 mod has with life sacrifice.

[skill]Animate Shambling Horror[/skill][skill]Animate Vampiric Horror[/skill][skill]Animate Bone Fiend[/skill][skill]Order of Undeath[/skill][skill]Blood of the Master[/skill][skill]Heal Area[/skill][skill]Dark Bond[/skill][skill]Signet of Lost Souls[/skill]

12 Death Magic + 1 Head gear + 3 Superior Rune
10 Soul Reaping + 2 Major Rune
8 Healing Prayers
2 Blood Magic + 1 Minor Rune

Staff is +25 energy, HCT 20%, HSR 20%, +1 Death 20%

480 health + 50 health (Superior Vigor) - 75 health (Superior Death) - 35 health (Major Soul Reaping = 420 health

No Vitae Runes, and no Survivor Insignias. So I have exactly 420 health when at max. With 10 minions, I sacrifice 105 health.

Heal Area at 8 attribute points heals for 110. If I add a +30 mod to my weapon, I raise my health to 450, and my sacrifice to 112.5 (113). The 3 health I am missing from a self heal is not an issue, even when running OoU. There is a Monk(s) on the team for a reason. If you are in battle, your self heal isn't to keep you alive, the Monk is. The self heal is for your life sacrifice and minion upkeep. And since I dont' spam Blood of the Master, I don't need to spam Heal Area. I use it mostly between battles, which means I heal myself and my minions both.

The 3 health I miss by adding a +30 mod won't be hard to deal with. If you can't deal with 3-8 health, you have other problems, and should learn how to play as an MM.

I don't use +30 on my MMs. I do, however, see that is isn't a bad option. More health means enemies target you less. Armor and health is how monsters pick their target. If you lower your health to lower your sacrifice, you INCREASE you target rate. I prefer monsters to not attack me, and lowering your health makes them attack you more.

Dark Bond means if I do get attacked, the damage is greatly reduced. This means the Monks job is easier at keeping me alive. I also know to kite, and not try to tank.

I do not personally think +30 is the best mod for an MM. I do think you are wrong in saying it is a bad one though. The extra health does NOT make self healing more difficult, but does make other things better.

Without drifting too terribly much further off topic, that's not a bad build at all. It's far better than 90% of the garbage that gets posted to these forums as a "pro MM build." Your attributes are right and so are 6 of your skills. And the remaining 2 aren't terrible. (You don't need dark bond in PvE; If you're getting hit that means you need to learn to play like a backline character. You don't need shambling horrors; They don't add anything that the Vamp Horrors aren't already doing better. Also, Masochism is slightly better than SoLS, but SoLS is still quite alright.) 420 is a great life total for Heal Area at 8 healing prayers. I like your choice of weapon too. I wish I had a +25e staff.

Now, on to the issue of adding a +30 hp mod to the staff:
1. Like I said before, the seemingly small added sac adds up to thousands of wasted hp and hundreds of wasted energy over the course of a mission/explorable instance.
2. The idea that slightly higher health is going to help you avoid aggro is largely a myth. While it's true that monsters "consider" HP when choosing a target, they also "consider" AL, proximity, and a host of other factors. The difference 30hp makes in terms of aggro is trivial compared to the difference that good positioning and kiting makes. If you're getting hit very often as a MM, that means you need to learn better positioning and battlefield awareness. Compensating for poor tactics by gimping your equipment with +hp mods and bringing sub-par skills like Dark Bond is not a good idea IMO, as it only makes your offense weaker and doesn't really solve the underlying problem of poor tactics.
Also, you should be a (comparatively) low priority target anyway. There should be no shortage of 440hp, 54AL bone fiends around. With a MM's insignia on the chest and maybe legs (and probably even without one), you should be a less appealing target than a bone fiend... unless your positioning is bad.

I bought 3 ghials staff for heroes and my necro yesterday for 5k each

Maybe it was a one off but it only took 5mijns of spamming

If 8 health is giving you problems, you need to stop spamming Blood of the Master.

Okay i have the staff with the insightfull staff head and the Death magic +1
and the 20% things but do i need the +30 Hp or not???

No, you do not need it. In fact, you'd be worse off if you had it.