Mace or Staff?Follow

That's a really open ended question. It all really depends on what's available to you. Generally at lower levels, staves are going to be more readily available. Staves generally provide higher bonuses to stats.

At higher levels (read endgame) it has been found that a mace and an off-hand provide higher spell damage or healing bonuses while less stat bonuses.

It also depends on your play style a bit. In PvP a staff may be better because of the added stats bonuses but in PvE a mace and off-hand are better for stacking bonus damage or healing.

Well I certainly agree with the two posts so far, I'd just like to add I was most disappointed that after having used staves all the way upto 60 I was essentially forced to switch to a mace and offhand due to most of the available staves in the auction hall tend to be for druids :(

Then again I do benefit from the plus healing, just kinda shocking looking at the lack of good priestly staves on my server.

Endgame shadow its pretty much always dagger/mace + offhand

Orb of the soul eater is possibly the best offhand in the game.

Main hand starts with
Lower city rep mace
then
Nathrezim Mindblade
then
Amani punisher/wubs cursed hexblade
then
Hammer of judgement from bt/hyjal trash (forget which)
then
Maelstrom's Fury from najentus in BT
then
Oddly, one staff, Zhar'doom, Greatstaff of the Devourer from illidan
then
back to orb of the soul eater with the S3 Mace.

Missed out a couple since so few guilds do doomwalker on a regular basis, also if you're going to save the arena points you're damn sure going to go for the S3 one.

Before epics however its pretty much all staves until you get your orb of the soul eater, that thing goes nicely with the blue daggers from slave pens and shattered halls respectively at a pre kara level.

If I could choose between a staff and a mace + offhand set with exactly the same stats, I'd go with the mace + offhand. The faster attack speed is (very rarely) useful in PVP to knock down a totem while moving or to keep someone from grabbing a flag. Given the same stats, I'd pick a dagger + offhand over either of those since they're even faster.

My shadow priest is t5+ hyjal/bt attuned

And without a doubt mace/dagger + offhand wins, not only are daggers/maces alot more common shadow priests dont really need the extra stam and intellect that much.
The more pure dps you do the more hp/mana you get back from vt/ve.

Its possible to go thru BT with merc glad main hand and orb of the soul eater, but i wouldnt recommend doing anything over t4 level raids with a staff.


edit: pve- hammer of judgement main hand/orb of soul eater offhand
pvp- hammer of judgement main hand/merc glad endgame offhand

Edited, Jan 7th 2008 8:07am by jonorevin