Staves (Origins)

Staves are the two-handed weapons of choice for mages. Each staff has a weak, short range default attack that costs no mana. Below is a list of significant staves found in-game. Staves always hit, but never hit critically. Staves are always made from metals for the purposes of their statistics, though some of the textures for them give them the appearance of wood, such as Morrigan's starting magic Staff or the Oak Branch.

Staff Damage Formula
Staff damage is directly influenced by spellpower: StaffDamage = BaseDamage + spellpower * 0.22 * StaffFocusAdjustment * damageBonus

BaseDamage spellpower StaffFocusAdjustment DamageBonus
 * The damage number listed in the staff's description. E.g. for Acolyte's Staff BaseDamage would be 4.00
 * The mage's base spellpower is the value of the magic attribute minus 10. Therefore it is modified not only by +X spellpower effects but also by +X magic effects. Each staff also has a spellpower value which is added to the mage's spellpower.
 * The current total spellpower (including all modifiers from the staff, other equipment and spell effects) is displayed on the lower left side of the character screen below the defense value.
 * 1.0 without Staff Focus
 * 1.33 with Staff Focus

This variable depends on the damage type of the staff: Here on the Dragon Age Wiki, the damage type of a staff is listed in parentheses next to the damage value in its description. The only method to determine it during normal gameplay is by looking at the damage colour during combat. See notes section for more information.
 * Fire: 1.2
 * Cold: 1.15
 * Electricity: 1.1
 * Nature: 1.15
 * Physical: 1.0

Elemental Modifiers
The following only affects staves that deal elemental damage, i.e. fire, cold, nature or electricity (there is currently no staff that deals spirit damage).

Elemental Damage Modifiers

If the staff inflicts elemental damage then gear boosting that type of damage will boost staff damage as well up to a maximum of +30%. E.g. for a staff dealing cold damage, with the maximum cold damage bonus of +30%, multiply the Staffdamage (as calculated per the formula above) by 1.3.

Elemental resistance Modifiers

Spells such as Vulnerability Hex and Affliction Hex will also increase your total damage with an elemental staff by decreasing the enemies resistance to elemental damage by up to 100%. This can provide another StaffDamage multiplier of up to 2 (at -100% resistance).

So for elemental staves the formula would be

ElementalStaffDamage = StaffDamage * ElementalDamageModifier * ElementalResistanceModifier

So, if you want extremely high staff damage in the 100s then high spellpower (Spell Wisp, Spell Might, and Stone Aura), and an elemental staff with hexes are the way to go.

Example
With Wintersbreath, Staff Focus, equipment providing the maximum +30% cold damage modifier and the target fully debuffed with -100% cold resistance, the elemental damage multiplier would be 1.3 and the elemental resitance multiplier would be 2.

Combining the 2 above formulas, the staff's damage would then be

Damage = (6.4 + spellpower * 0.22 * 1.33 * 1.15) * 1.3 * 2

or (shortened)

Damage = (6.4 + spellpower * 0.34) * 2.6

Example spellpower/Damage values:
 * 50 spellpower: 61 damage
 * 100 spellpower: 105 damage
 * 150 spellpower: 149 damage
 * 170 spellpower: 155 damage

See notes section for further elaboration and examples on the accuracy of the damage formula.

Awakening
hight of the magister lord

Damage Formula Accuracy
There has been some discussion about the accuracy of the staff damage formula. The base formula can easily be verified by equipping a staff, then calculating the damage with the formula and comparing it to the damage number on the lower left corner of the character screen. They usually correspond almost exactly. The following examples are from tests done with a mage that had an unmodified magic attribute of 60 (ergo a base spellpower value of 50), the staff focus talent and no equipment other than the staff.

STAFF                                DAMAGE VALUE Character Screen   Formula Result Acolyte's Staff                 19.5              19.51 Lightning Rod (Awakening)       27.3              27.32 Dragon's Call                   28.1              28.17

Unfortunately, since elemental modifiers are not taken into account by the game when displaying damage on the character screen, there is no easy way to verify the accuracy of the elemental staff damage formula.

Damage Type Determination
Unfortunately, there is no information in a staff's in-game description about the type of damage it does. Therefore, as mentioned above, the only method to determine the damage type during normal gameplay is by looking at the colour of the damage numbers during combat and comparing them to the damage colour glossary.

On the it is possible to verify the damage type of the Origins staves with the use of the toolset.

You can look them up in the palette window under the item tab (small sword icon) in the following folder: _GLOBAL / Weapons, Mage / Staves Some staves might not be in that list, check the individual quest folders under the items tab such as Background - Human and Elf Mage (Valor's Staff), etc.

If you open a local copy of the staff (by right clicking and selecting "open local copy" from the menu), then open "Variables" (last entry in the "Attributes" section), the value under the PROJECTILE_OVERRIDE entry will indicate the damage type:
 * no value = physical damage
 * 125 = fire damage
 * 126 = cold damage
 * 128 = electricity damage
 * 129 = nature damage