Staves Only Being Linked to Primary Atts

Quick question. I've been wiki-ing a few eotn stave skins I like [Chrysocola, Crystal Flame, and Astral], and have noticed that they are only linked to a professions primary attributes.

Why are these staves not linked to non primary attributes like protection, healing, domination, etc.?

I have no idea why the devs chose to do that, or if they've ever provided an official response. I'm interested to watch and see if anyone can answer the, "why?" question.

I don't mean to derail your thread, but I thought it might help to know it's not just EotN-only skins where that happens with inscription items. The inscribable Platinum stuff that drops in EotN and the inscribable Zodiac Stuff that drops from the reward chests in the Factions elite missions seem to have that same restriction - they only drop inscribable for one attribute per profession. It's usually the primary attribute except for Mesmers, who get Inspiration on staves and Domination on Wands.

The following doesn't cover the skins you mentioned, as they're always inscribable. But you might find this helpful, too.

take_me's Q/A thread about which skins do not come inscribable
take_me's wiki page with the full list (also covers items like Zodiac and Platinum which have attribute restrictions on inscribable versions.)

He spent a lot of time searching, and it's a nice list of the skins where no one could show him inscribable versions. I don't think he has much time to work on it these days, but it still seems pretty accurate to me.

Cheers,
Luny

Most casters will always spec 9 or so in the primary attribute. Any monk worth his salt is at least 9 Div fav. Elementalists will have to spec 9+ in Energy Storage to use the most powerful spells, and necros will usually spec as high as they can in SR to get the most out of their castings. It's a caster thing, for certain, to use that Primary attribute to the best of their ability.

@ Alchemist It isn't that they always spec 9 into that attribute, You can't get must use out of a 20% HCT Inscription on primary-attribute only staves. When are you going to use a 20% HCT on fast casting spells? Or Soul reaping? It'd be much better if they had a HCT curse or domination.

For the record, the Chrysocola staff is not linked to the Mesmer's primary attribute... It's linked to inspiration magic. A possible explanation is that they intended to have staff linked to all the attribute lines, but that due to the rush to get the game out the door it was narrowed down to just one for each caster profession.

Ye, the mesmer-versions of quite a few staves are the exception from the "primary caster attribute"-rule.

i'll probably add inscribable staves to my wiki-site in the near future
Especially skins like Ghostly Staff, Shadow Staff etc..... and the EotN-Staves.

It's not just the Chrysocola Staff.

As mentioned, almost every inscribable "universal" staff comes only on primary attributes, except for the Mesmer version which is Inspiration. Just to name a few more: Embercrest, Crystal Flame, Astral, and the whole serie named after mineral gemstones, Turquoise, Onyx, Cobalt, Moldavite...

(All those EoTN skins also have a glitch in common: the Energy Storage version deals Elemental Damage, but the projectile shot looks more like Chaos Damage)

I believe this is because of those skins being considered cross-profession (universal) in the design phase, so it was easier to pick the primary attribute for each profession. For the Mesmer, they went for Inspiration instead, which is functionally equivalent to a primary attribute, being the line where most of the e-management and support skills for this class reside.

Skins previously available as non-inscribable only (such as Platinum, Zodiac, Celestial) also have their inscribable counterpart following this convention.

The only exception I recall is the Dead Staff, which is actually "universal" (available in every caster attribute) even when inscribable, and of course the crafted/collector sets (BMP/Destroyer/Tormented).

Almost true^^

Celestial Staves / Scepters still don't come inscribable.
From what I know Dead Staves don't come in all attributes, like Healing and Prot and Restoration etc...

Thanks, didn't know about that. I thought an inscribable version was available, like bows, swords coming from the ZChest.