Staff improvement?

After watching the cinematic, I think it would be the coolest thing to have staffs be melee. Because as of now, there's no added bonus to staffs. they take two hands to hold so you can't hold a rune in the other hand.(As so i've heard) This just doesn't make sense! So I think staffs should either generally do more damage, be able to be used as melee, and/or you should be able to place a rune in the top of your staff.

Well, if Staffs were to be used as melee weapons, I don't forsee them doing nearly as much damage as any sword out there; even if you had the "best" damage staff available, I don't think it'd be able to do much more than 10 damage max. The only thing I can think of is Final Fantasy I; the damage a White Wizard can do compared to that of a Knight is drastically less.

Wouldn't it be an option to just be able to use a Staff with one hand and hold another item in the other? I'm not sure about the specifics of the current Staffs, so this is me just throwing something out there, but I would think that you'd be able to wield a staff with only one-hand quite comfortably.

Don't worry about weapons, it's only the Beta yet, I bet they'll add new equipments asap like 2handed swords/axes, staffs etc etc....if not by patches then with add-ons!

Well I'm not asking for a staff to be "ubersest weapon dude" It makes sense for it not to have as much damage as a sword, I'm just asking for it be melee

Staves can be upgraded, while wands cannot.

ok good, there IS a balance. Thanks Tur!

Welcome!

Well, wouldn't you agree that if you're wielding a staff and you're ever in a situation where you need to use melee, that you're pretty much screwed anyway it goes? Especially if your Monk is gone and you're that low on energy/that close to the battle where you need to melee, it won't matter whether or not you can melee or not.

I guess it's just a RP thing....lol

Don't take my reply the wrong way, there's nothing wrong with having a Stave as a melee weapon, especially if you need both hands to use it and that means taking away from utilizing any runes and whatnot. Just trying to get my point across

Besides, who wouldn't want to take the opportunity every now and then to whack a Charr on the head with a Stave? Kind of like old men hitting "young houligans" over the head with walking canes...

Staves are fine as they are. They are even with Wands+Focii - just hard as hell to find a good one. You can upgrade them with staff heads and staff wraps while you cannot upgrade your wand. They shoot little beams of energy at people. If you couple this with the appropriate conjure spell, staves and focii are a formidable force. Using them in Melee would be daft at best.