Brightshade staff requires rebalancing

[Pticman]

I have used brightshade staff in the last beta quit a lot, and came to the conclusion that it is in the current state rather unbalanced. There are 2 issues with it right now :

1. It completely melts new enemies and minibosses, without providing any challenge whatsoever. The damage output with full armor set is twice higher than brightshade sword (140 vs 63) while constantly stunlocking, giving zero chance for enemy to come closer.

2. On the other hand, brightshade stuff completely sucks against normal enemies, dealing only 50 damage without set and 70 with full set, limiting the usage of the staff to only recently added content.

We all want the new equipment be used outside the new content, so it can give some benefits to our allday dst routine. Without consideration the fringe use of the staff in AF fight it remains an a weak item.

To achieve that goal, I  think it would be a good change to reduce the disproportional gap between the damage output to shadow planar creatures and normal creatures.

Here is my suggestions (please take these numbers with the grain of salt) :

• Increase the amount of bounces of the projectile from 5 to 8 on basic stat line without using armorset, damage remains the same (return to the prenerf state)
• The staff will have +10% against shadow creatures (1 planar damage)  and an additional +15% from full set against any creature (1.5 planar damage), 12.5 damage max in total
• Reduce the stunlock effect from projectiles, give them chance to stun the creature (from 100% to 50%) that will make fight more engaging, requiring some dodging at least.

The final damage calculations would look this way :

1. Against normal creatures without using armor  > 8*10=80 damage from 50 damage before (60% increase) ;
2. against normal creatures with using armor > 8*11.5=92 damage from 70 damage before (31% increase) ;
3. against shadow creatures without using armor > 8*11=88 damage from 100 (12% decrease) ;
4. against shadow creatures with using armor > 8*12.5=100 damage from 140 (40% decrease).

Again the main idea of this rebalance is to make the staff usable in the combat beside the new content while reducing the unbalanced gap between using it against planar creatures and normal creatures. It is still going to be the strongest weapon against new Ink Blights and Fused Shadlings. Of course, these numbers are highly subjective and I would like to hear your opinion, if the staff requires rebalance or not.

[goatt]

Under the same logic, weather pain is unbalanced. Because sometimes, it's super useful. But it's very bad against regular enemies.

I believe the staff is a niche item with very specific use case. As long as it's very good in those cases, which it is as you mentioned, it's a good item compared to other utility items in DST.

If you find this item not helpful in fighting normal enemies, I believe it's because it's designed this way intentionally.

[Mike23Ua]

Am I missing something here???? I hit a Training Dummy with a Brightshade Staff, Damage shows as 10.. ONLY 10.. and if there are a group of enemies (up to 7) the staff bounces 10 damage between each enemy..

I found this Staff to be completely and utterly useless in almost every occasion I’ve tried to use it on.

Common sense says it SHOULD be useful for dealing with groups of Brightshades (targeting and attacking the vulnerable parts of their roots) but at measly 10 Damage… this things just a waste of resources.

[gamehun20]

2 minutes ago, Mike23Ua said:

Am I missing something here???? I hit a Training Dummy with a Brightshade Staff, Damage shows as 10.. ONLY 10.. and if there are a group of enemies (up to 7) the staff bounces 10 damage between each enemy..

I found this Staff to be completely and utterly useless in almost every occasion I’ve tried to use it on.

Common sense says it SHOULD be useful for dealing with groups of Brightshades (targeting and attacking the vulnerable parts of their roots) but at measly 10 Damage… this things just a waste of resources.

Yeah it's 10 damage (20 to shadows) every time that's why you spam it with the armor set on low health hordes

[Pticman]

34 minutes ago, goatt said:

Under the same logic, weather pain is unbalanced. Because sometimes, it's super useful. But it's very bad against regular enemies.

I believe the staff is a niche item with very specific use case. As long as it's very good in those cases, which it is as you mentioned, it's a good item compared to other utility items in DST.

If you find this item not helpful in fighting normal enemies, I believe it's because it's designed this way intentionally.

Weather pain is the utility item that can be used in at least 4 boss battles and in mining-chopping. But it is rather the tool than a weapon, helping the fight, but not making it redundant. The staff on the other hand makes the fight completely none enjoyable, deleting the Ink Blights in a about 10 seconds. And still, it does not provide any utility except these specific usage. The better comparison for weatherpain and birightshade staff would be if let say weather pain dealt about 500 damage to some specific bosses with each hit. Would be it enjoyable experience, just spamming weather pains without dodging etc?

I don't think it is bad to wish for item to be more useful in more situations, while not absolutely op in 1 specific situation. It could be design choice for sure, I guess I prefer diversity more.

[Capybara007]

then just dont use it lol

[abrocator]

4 hours ago, goatt said:

I believe the staff is a niche item with very specific use case. As long as it's very good in those cases, which it is as you mentioned, it's a good item compared to other utility items in DST.

This isn’t good design. (by this/your logic) You could have fire/earth/water/wind enemies and counter them with the appropriate elemental weapon. Okay great, a fire elemental. Well I have a water sword in my inventory. Guess I win then? The “mechanics” then just boil down to (1) gathering the weapons and (2) having four different weaopons in your inventory or in Chester. No more depth then that.

[goatt]

3 hours ago, abrocator said:

You could have fire/earth/water/wind enemies and counter them with the appropriate elemental weapon.

My original comment only reference to DST game. And I think it's always been like this in DST. Many items, such as weather pain, nightmare amulet, bee queen crown, ice/fire staff, panflute, etc. are rarely used unless against very specific tasks. I didn't design this, nor do I actively support this. But since I didn't complain the rest of them, I want to be consistent and not complain about brightshade staff.

I believe all those rare items are for utility, not universal purpose. 

8 hours ago, Pticman said:

I don't think it is bad to wish for item to be more useful in more situations, while not absolutely op in 1 specific situation.

The staff is also useful in fw fight, because it can destroy both hands and little bug in one go as a ranged weapon.

[goblinball]

9 hours ago, goatt said:

Under the same logic, weather pain is unbalanced. Because sometimes, it's super useful. But it's very bad against regular enemies.

I believe the staff is a niche item with very specific use case. As long as it's very good in those cases, which it is as you mentioned, it's a good item compared to other utility items in DST.

If you find this item not helpful in fighting normal enemies, I believe it's because it's designed this way intentionally.

There’s a difference between ppl finding creative ways to use the weather pain in boss fights and the brightshade staff only artificially being useful when The Lore permits it

[Primalflower]

i don't really get it. the brightshade staff is situationally useful due to its unique way of attacking. Its still pretty useful in horde scenarios like splumonkeys, woven shadows, or spiders, and i think thats enough. it doesn't need to compete with the brightshade sword.

[goatt]

35 minutes ago, goblinball said:

There’s a difference between ppl finding creative ways to use the weather pain in boss fights

Not sure if it's very creative. It's somewhat obvious and it's somewhat the only option for many players. Not using weather pain in fw would be called a pro. Not using weather pain in toad solo would also be called a pro or player specific perk. Crab king is slightly less demanding on weather pain. But in general, weather pain is not a creative solution to many, but a necessary item.

[Brago-sama]

1 hour ago, goatt said:

The staff is also useful in fw fight, because it can destroy both hands and little bug in one go as a ranged weapon.

Wooooah wait the staff also destroys the Fuelweavers shield hands?

[Primalflower]

3 minutes ago, Brago-sama said:

Wooooah wait the staff also destroys the Fuelweavers shield hands?

just tested this. It does, but you have to be insane, of course. its not like, a bypass on that, or anything. still an incredible boon in such a fight.

[-Nick-]

Late game weapon does late game damage omg!!! What travesty!!

[Baark0]

1 hour ago, goatt said:

The staff is also useful in fw fight, because it can destroy both hands and little bug in one go as a ranged weapon.

Also really useful during moonstorms, especially since brightshade helmet is the new best item for them so you can get the set bonus with minimal effort

[Brago-sama]

1 hour ago, Primalflower said:

just tested this. It does, but you have to be insane, of course. its not like, a bypass on that, or anything. still an incredible boon in such a fight.

Maaaan and here i thought i found some god tier teammates lol it was just me accidently destroying them

Ty so much for this info and testing

[goblinball]

10 hours ago, -Nick- said:

Late game weapon does late game damage omg!!! What travesty!!

Late game weapons are supposed to shred early/mid game enemies, NOT late game ones on the same tier. That’s just basic progresssion.

[Pticman]

11 hours ago, Primalflower said:

i don't really get it. the brightshade staff is situationally useful due to its unique way of attacking. Its still pretty useful in horde scenarios like splumonkeys, woven shadows, or spiders, and i think thats enough. it doesn't need to compete with the brightshade sword.

I explained my point in the post. Brightshade staff is disbalanced weapon, because it completely annihilates  new creatures while still remaining bad against normal creatures. Like it literally takes about 10 seconds to kill Ink Blights (which are designed to be interesting mini Boses) and 1 staff is enough to kill for 6 of them. With brightshade sword you need to spend at least 2 minutes (depending on the experience) to kill them. 

Saying what it is good against spiders or splumonkeys is optimistic to say at least, the damage output is really low to be relevant against any horde mobs. To clear 1 frog rain you need about 3/4 staffs.

I am not against the tools with some specific usage like weather pain or painflutes. But here is another situation. Disproportional gap in the usage against planar creatures and normal creatures is just unbalanced, that is why I suggested the rebalance to reduce this gap and make the staff better overall with more potential beside the new content while keeping it in the strong spot.

[Cr4zyFl4mes]

What is the highest damage the staff can do?

[Primalflower]

2 hours ago, Pticman said:

To clear 1 frog rain you need about 3/4 staffs.

this is amazing

[Pticman]

4 minutes ago, Primalflower said:

this is amazing

Sorry maybe you misunderstood it 3 or 4 staffs, not 3/4 of one staff

[Primalflower]

38 minutes ago, Pticman said:

Sorry maybe you misunderstood it 3 or 4 staffs, not 3/4 of one staff

i did not misunderstand. 3/4 staffs for seven trillion frog legs and a frog rain dealt with is a perfectly interesting deal to me

[firoborn]

1 hour ago, Cr4zyFl4mes said:

What is the highest damage the staff can do?

70 with full BS armor set (7 bounces 10 damage per bounce) on normal enemies, 140 on shadow aligned enemies (20 damage per bounce

Edit: the damage is only when fighting more than one enemy and the staff has 50 uses

[Antynomity]

36 minutes ago, Primalflower said:

i did not misunderstand. 3/4 staffs for seven trillion frog legs and a frog rain dealt with is a perfectly interesting deal to me

that's a terrible deal, I scrapped a video about how you can just set up outposts around the world with a brightshade in the middle that you attack with a low damage or no damage ranged weapon to force the bramble attack so it just baits all the frogs over and over as it one shots entire groups in one attack

and each one only needs one brightshade, no brilliance and does a lot more than a staff could ever do

[maxwell_winters]

41 minutes ago, Primalflower said:

3/4 staffs for seven trillion frog legs and a frog rain dealt with is a perfectly interesting deal to me

I mean, you can just use the Brighshade itself. Agrro it with a ranged weapon near a frog and you''ll get a ton of legs.