Mages staff choice?

[Boshar]

Well i've been confused lately about whether mages attack depends on elemental damage or the ap, i always had the idea that novas/range skills depends on elemental damage and the staff hit skill (42-72) depends on the staff's ap

Is that true? if yes, then why do all nova mages purchase expensive staffs when they could just get a wood staff +10 for the elemental damage.

and does it matter if a mage doesn't have high MP but has a good high ele/ap staff?
or maybe a better slow/stun rate?

I'm mainly asking about Nova town mages.

[MegaBerry]

As far as I know the elemental damage from staff + accesories and main mp points (not points from mp bonus by accesories or gear) affects your nova and ranged attacks dmg on other players. But when we are talking about blade attack dmg the staff's ap is playing important role. Also what comes to stun/slow rate it should be based on main intelligence. However I cannot say for 100% sure about those things since I never played mage seriously. And remember the staff's only purpose isnt to do dmg, other bonuses like dd are important too.

[Boshar]

As far as I know the elemental damage from staff + accesories and main mp points (not points from mp bonus by accesories or gear) affects your nova and ranged attacks dmg on other players. But when we are talking about blade attack dmg the staff's ap is playing important role. Also what comes to stun/slow rate it should be based on main intelligence. However I cannot say for 100% sure about those things since I never played mage seriously. And remember the staff's only purpose isnt to do dmg, other bonuses like dd are important too.

I think you're right, either a jurad mountain staff (Scorching-Chaotic-Oasis) for dd or Aztec gold faun (Molok-Fulitol-Faun) for the curse would be a good choice.

[fenrirstop]

ap staff importent, ele sucks

[Grecza]

high basic MP is always a matter when it comes to dealing dmg and i'm pretty much sure no staff can replace a high MP loss, damage dealing is both affected by AP and elemental damage, as you said, thats why people do buy staffs like elixir +7 and dont satisfy themselves with wood +7, staff AP difference is more than anywhere else noticable when melee sliding an enemy
from what i have noticed when it comes to slow rate better elemental damage used to be more useful when using a distanced spell while higher staff AP is better for slide slowing down, this is the reason why i always loved glacier erenion +7 more than any other staff in the game for support ice mage, it also has low requirements so there were lot of spare points to put in health

anyway, these are my experiences from 2008, i dont really know if the game has changed in this way during the past few years