Canthan Staves - Questions? Here Is What I have Learned Over The Years Of Collecting

Let me start by saying this I am writing this to combat false information being used to manipulate prices through fake trades and fake screenshots.


This is my guide as if I were the GW god. Feel free to disagree in comments. But I have been collecting and interested in these staves for many years... this is all accurate to my knowledge.

So I will start from the basics. Canthan Staves are different than Tyrian because in Tyria a staff drops with only 1 req (except shadow, ghostly, raven). You get a Jeweled Staff and it only has an Illusion req. In Cantha, you get a Zodiac or Dragon Staff and it can have many many different reqs.

Because of this, think about the statistics and the randomness involved in getting a nice staff. To get a 20/20 illusion Jeweled Staff in Tyria, there is 1 degree of randomness - the 20% HCT Illu on the inherent is the only degree - call it probability P where P is a number much less than 1. If you want to get a 20/20 illusion Zodiac or Dragon Staff, there are 2 degrees of randomness - so the probability would be P^2. The req and the inherent are both random. So the probability of a specific 20/20 is not half the amount, its the square. And P is a small small number for 20% HCT mods, so P^2 << P.

20/10 Staves are a much much more common drop than a matching 20/20 because of this. A matching 20/20 has like 15 wrong inherents where you get a non match and 1 correct to get a match. A wrong would be getting an Illusion req and getting a fire inherent. A 20/10 has no wrong inherent, if you get a 20/10, its automatically a match.

Why do I go through all this chatter? Because people are asking crazy prices for their staves these days. Staves that people used to feed to the merchant or drop after ID'ing. The new Guru community deserves to know this.

20/10 Staves are a common drop, matching 20/20 are not. 20/9 staves are merch food. Even a 20/9 fire Dragon Staff is merch food (and I consider a fire Dragon Staff to have the highest value intrinsically of any combination of Canthan Staff combination). You may notice that I have offered 5e ish on 20/9 Dragon Staves in the past. It is because I customize them and give to friends for their friend item collections, not because they are worth anything. The thread where a q9 Earth 20/9 Bo Staff was sold for 300e is a lie (99.99% probability). Yes, I am calling you out. Anyone who is anyone is skeptical of this as everyone should be. I don't care if you have a screenshot, it's fake.

Ok so now on to Canthan skins. I will give 2 hierarchies. One for Rarity of the OS Version as to obtaining it and 1 for prices. Because there is a slight difference in my opinion. There is some debate as to the hierarchy of staff skins in terms of rarity and price - feel free to post yours, I know there used to be a thread about this. But here is mine:

RARITY - This is my order:

• 1. Platinum - It does drop insc, but I the OS is a very very rare drop - honestly rarer than Dragon in OS (I have dropped fewer plats in my 8+ years on gw), but Dragon is more 'leet' and worth more.
• 2. Dragon - It does not drop insc, and drops very rarely around cantha.
• BIG DROP OFF IN RARITY
• 3. Zodiac - Only obtainable in Elite Missions. It does drop insc also, but the OS ones are hard to find because not many people farm them anymore.
• BIG DROP OFF IN RARITY
• 4. Celestial - Easily farmable via chest run in Xuquang, but they do not come insc.
• 5. Bo - Easily farmable in Chos estate, but they do not come insc. These are so easily farmable that there was a nerf of skills like Necrotic Transversal. It doubled the farming time, but they are still common as hell to get as drops. All you need is a 55 monk to farm these.

I used 1+ and 1- for Dragon and Platinum because they are very close... Some people think Dragon 1 and Plat 2 and some vice versa.

PRICE:

• 1+. Dragon
• 1-. Platinum
• BIG DROP OFF IN PRICE
• 3. Zodiac
• 4. Bo
• BIG DROP OFF IN PRICE
• 5. Celestial

I switch the order of celestial and Bo for price because people like Bo for some reason - I don't see it. I think the second BIG DROP OFF IN PRICE should be above Bo personally.

Reqs: I personally believe that there is the same probability for any req to drop. For example - P(Fire req) = P(Water req) = P(____ req) = A where A<1. It's all random.

Inherent: If the probability of getting a HCT 20% inherent is H, I would say the probability of a 20/10 inherent is at least 5H. 20/10's are vastly more common than 20/20s.
For example - P(HCT Fire) = P(HCT Water) = P(____ req) = H. P(10% HCT ALL) = 5H.

Probability of req and inherent is the product of the 2, not the sum or division or anything. (Basic Statistics since the 2 are independent).

Obviously the relationship may not be 5x between them, but it's the point, not the exact math that matters.

I PC these staves often and I try to do so consistently, I may have deviated from this, but I am revising all my PC's to this. So what are these items worth in their various stats?

• Dragon Staves in 20/10 have generally traded around 40e-50e for q9's.
• Platinum Staves in 20/10 should be worth around 20e-40e for q9 (according to an expert I know, I'm no expert in this).
• Zodiac Staves in 20/10 should be worth around 15e-25e in q9.
• Bo Staves in 20/10 should be worth around 100k-20e in q9.
• Celestial Staves in 20/10 should be worth around 50k-80k in q9.

Of course, these are my opinions and I expect some flamers to disagree. But I expect that all of the old school traders would agree with this to first order of magnitude. Of course some reqs are worth more than others. I listed averages. For example q9 fire might be worth more than q9 water. q9 divine might be worth more than q9 smiting. Etc.

• Now on to 20/9's - In my opinion these are all crap. Most of us older players used to not even pick these up or merch them or give to heroes.
  
• Ok now on 20/20's - These are the rare ones. 20/20 Canthan Staves are SIGNIFICANTLY harder to obtain than 20/10's. For every 1 req X (attribute here) 20/20 HCT (Attribute here) Canthan Staff, I would guess that 75 20/10's drop and 40 of those crappy 20% condition reductions drop. That is based on assuming 15 attributes of Canthan Staff drops and the probability of any 20/20 inherent is 5 times less likely than a 20/10. As a price rule, I generally think that a q X (attribute here) 20/20 (Attribute here) Canthan Staff is worth 20 to 30 times the 20/10 version. There are some exceptions though.
  
  Exception: q9 fire Dragon Staff 20/10 I pc at 50e-60e. q9 fire Dragon Staff 20/20 HCT Fire I would say is 5000e easy - would have been at one point. So that is a factor of many more than 30. But for reqs like channeling, I think my 20-30x factor holds. Fire is the 1 exception to everything - especially for Dragon Staves as me and many other people have been dreaming of finding one for ages - NOT BECAUSE THEY ARE ANY RARER, BUT BECAUSE OF THE LUCK OF DROPS OVER THE PAST YEARS. q Divine 20/20 Heal/Prot may be an exception also.
  
• 20/19's - Sometimes you get a 20/19 matching instead of a 20/20. These unfortunately are worth much less than their 20/20 counterparts. Probably 2-3 times what a 20/10 is worth. Or 1/10 what a 20/20 is worth. I think these are under appreciated for their rarity, but that is just me - not many agree.

This guide is of course a work in progress. I hope it clarifies some things. I don't address Jade and Amber Staves. They are way less rare and pricey than even Celestial. Outcast Staves I have left out because I am not an expert in them. Same with Forbidden. Cockatrice Staves are almost all merch food. Cockatrice are the cheapest staves in Cantha.


Hopefully this guide has some meaning and helps some people become more knowledgeable about these items.

Experts, and you know who you are, if you want to add anything - feel free to post here, send me a message or whatever.

Cheers (By the way, I think this should be a sticky)---[mod edit--sorry we have too many stickies already in PC and this is NOT a pc post so it has been moved to a more appropriate area--mod edit]

** I changed rarity to reflect me sleeping on this and Pleikki's thoughts - Thanks. I'm not including other skins other than the brief blurb at the end as of now.