Staves

"A good staff is better than any friend. They don't complain when you lean on them. Or push them in the mud."

- The Memory of Nor Tiraj^(src)

Staves are long, blunt type of two-handed weapons featured throughout the Diablo series.

Unadorned staves are often little more than walking sticks, used by travelers to clear brush and keep small predators at bay. Their appearance doesn’t always convey their power, though – a seemingly plain staff can also serve as a channel for mighty arcane or spiritual forces. When forged of iron and tipped with blades, staves become a deadly weapon for a trained warrior. Still, however, most of the time, enchanted staves are used by spell casters.

Diablo I

In Diablo I, magical staves are used by the Sorcerer and non-magical combat staves by the Monk. Staves have low Strength requirements, but often demand high Magic. Many staves are concealing powerful spells with a limited amount of charges, which Sorcerer can recharge in the field with questionable efficiency and will in return diminish the charges' amount.

Diablo II

Diablo II staff data

QL	Name	Damage	Speed	Max sockets	Str req	Dex req	Lv req
1	Short Staff	1–5	−10	2	—	—	—
8	Long Staff	2–8	0	3	—	—	—
12	Gnarled Staff	4–12	10	4	—	—	—
17	Battle Staff	6–13	0	4	—	—	—
24	War Staff	12–28	20	6	—	—	—
30	Jo Staff	6–21	−10	2	25	—	18
35	Quarterstaff	8–26	0	3	25	—	23
38	Cedar Staff	11–32	10	4	25	—	25
42	Gothic Staff	14–34	0	4	25	—	25
47	Rune Staff	24–58	20	6	25	—	25
58	Walking Stick	69–85	−10	2	25	—	43
66	Stalagmite	75–107	10	3	63	35	49
74	Elder Staff	80–93	0	4	44	37	55
83	Shillelagh	65–108	0	4	52	27	62
85	Archon Staff	83–99	10	6	34	—	66

Diablo II two-hand swing attack speed data

Class	Base attack frames	Base attacks per second
Amazon	17	1.47
Assassin	18	1.38
Barbarian	18	1.38
Druid	16	1.56
Necromancer	19	1.31
Paladin	17	1.47
Sorceress	15	1.66

Staves are two-handed rods, a type of blunt, melee weapon in Diablo II. All staves have a range adder of 1.

Staves are usually most useful to the Sorceress, as nonmagic, magic and rare staves can have innate bonuses to individual Sorceress Skills. Staff damage scales with the wielder's Strength, with each point of Strength equivalent to 1% enhanced damage. Magic and rare staves can have Sorceress skill prefixes. Like other rods, staves can have increased mana and faster cast rate affixes, but fewer attack rating and weapon damage affixes. Like other blunt weapons, staves are compatible with Barbarian Mace Mastery, and have an inherent +50% damage to undead modifier.

Staves, wands and orbs are all labeled "staff class" in-game, but the three weapon types have distinct properties.

Two quest items, the Staff of Kings and the Horadric Staff, are staves.

Set staves

The set staves in classic are:

• Arcanna's Deathwand (War Staff)
• Cathan's Rule (Battle Staff)

An additional set staff in the Lord of Destruction expansion is:

• Naj's Puzzler (Elder Staff)

Unique staves

Main article: List of Unique Staves (Diablo II)

The unique staves in classic are:

• Bane Ash (Short Staff)
• Serpent Lord (Long Staff)
• Spire of Lazarus (Gnarled Staff)
• The Salamander (Battle Staff)
• The Iron Jang Bong (War Staff)

Additional unique staves in the expansion are:

• Razorswitch (Jo Staff)
• Ribcracker (Quarterstaff)
• Chromatic Ire (Cedar Staff)
• Warpspear (Gothic Staff)
• Skull Collector (Rune Staff)
• Ondal's Wisdom (Elder Staff)

An additional unique staff in offline and ladder expansion play is:

• Mang Song's Lesson (Archon Staff)

Staff rune words

The maximum number of sockets possible in a staff is 6.

In the expansion, the following Weapon Rune Words function in nonmagic staves (but not necessarily wands or orbs) with exactly the specified number of sockets:

• Breath of the Dying (6 sockets)
• Call to Arms (5 sockets)
• Eternity (5 sockets)
• Fury (3 sockets)
• Hand of Justice (4 sockets)
• Heart of the Oak (4 sockets)
• Honor (5 sockets)
• Leaf (2 sockets)
• Malice (3 sockets)
• Memory (4 sockets)
• Passion (4 sockets)
• Silence (6 sockets)
• Strength (2 sockets)
• Venom (3 sockets)
• Wind (2 sockets)

Additional Rune Words for spears in ladder play are:

• Fortitude (4 sockets)
• Insight (4 sockets)
• Phoenix (4 sockets)

Diablo III

Most staves in Diablo III are used by the Wizard and Witch Doctor classes. However, Monks may wield those as well, as a cheap alternative to Polearms and Daibo (which are, in a manner of speaking, a variant of combat staves). However, in Diablo III, staves no longer have charges for spells. In light of the lack of total stats for two-handed weapons, staves are usually used by Eirena, and not by players. Staves may be transmogrified into Two-Handed Axes and Two-Handed Maces, but not Polearms.