QUOTE(n125 @ Jan 3 2012, 21:44)

For elemental spells, you will want an Ebony Staff of Destruction. For Holy/Dark spells, you will want a Katalox Staff of Destruction. You will want your staff to have high MDM, EDB, Proficiency, and later when you start relying on it, a good ET rate and duration. When you first start out though, you might do yourself better by finding an Ebony or Katalox (depending on which spells you're using) staff with the Focus suffix, as that will increase your Magic Accuracy to help reduce misses.
Yes, seconded on avoiding misses. Those are harsh when you have low proficiency and derived accuracy stats because of nooby-low Int/Wis. 20% miss on 10 custom/boss monsters=Ouch! At least they don't get monsters with PL of 200-500 all the time, LOL.
I got lucky back before CM was nerfed and had a 48% (back when max on drop was reduced to around 40%) staff that could essentially give me unlimited mana in long item worlds. Now that would not be a good strategy at low levels. Only worry about ET chance once you have the stats and proficiency to take advantage of it.
I also remember the fire spell 0-mana exploit back then. Not really useful since you had to be about level 5. I don't even know if it was ever fixed but it's useless after your first day. (IMG:[
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