I find it extremely unlikely that we can ever source a better staff than our current one for our purposes. Mathilde has a ton of fog based spells , including her own personal masteries and battlemagic, and being able to cast battle-magic grade spells safely and consistently is a much bigger bonus than just about anything else I can see Boney allowing us to get.
I'm legitimately unsure whether the Staff of Volans would be a step up for us, and that thing gives +2 magic! At this point I'd say that Mathilde's load out is basically "complete". I don't see us ever getting a staff better suited to our kit (especially since we've gone heavy on the fog based battlemagic to synergize with it), and we certainly aren't getting a sword better than a Kragg the Grim masterpiece (especially once we complete the fighting style to synergize with it), and the Belt and Seed are both obscenely powerful both individually and in combination.
There's a tiny bit of wiggle room with our robes - they wasn't our best enchanting work and I could see us getting an upgrade to it (especially once We silk is finally available), but generally speaking we should be assuming that there's no more real upgrades to be found in equipment, and if we want to improve our abilities then we just need Mathilde to git gud personally.
I think that staff of Mistery is good, and safe, but maybe
more safe than good (when
compared to the likes of the Staff of Volans) if that makes sense? in the future we might hit the point that being able to throw around the
might of magic 11+ power and effects that it might have could outway the risk of a standard (or much lowered in the cast of magic level 11+) miscast chance.
like,
theoretically, if the staff of angry tree person makes
all shadow Battle magic much easier to cast, A future Mathy that knows
all the spellbook, plus a few spells that she has made that don't full under 'mist', and who has collected one or two battle magic traits, might find that better overall staff then the staff of Mistery.
that's not the case
now. but I can see a stronger mathy Thread changing their risk calculations.
If we ever get a High-end Ward (FYI wards are very much an Enoir
thing and we are trying to get to know their spellcasters ) I would very much like to windherd a Ward effect into the roble. I honestly think that's the end game for the roble.
'not getting hit at all' is starting to become more important than being able to recover fast from a hit. but i'll like to do both.
I'm not sold on the flask (but I'm not going to open that up again.) But I would like to replace it at some point with a comparable shadow/windherder spell at 'some point'
for me, The Candle is very situational for an item we have in a 'standard' slot.
also, the rune guns are 'sub-optional' so if we ever get around to it, I would replace them with something mathy made. (but a big 'meh' '
if we get around to it' in this case)
I see the 'final' (if we ever get there) load out as something like this:
Melee Weapon: Branulhune
Ranged Weapon:
Higher effect magic gun/something more exotic
Staff/Banner: Staff of Mistery
/Staff of Volans/Staff of angry tree person/etc (we will see what the effects are like when we know them and how 'high-end' Mathy works with them)
Protective:
Robes of Aethyric Armour/ward effect (Enoir?)
Healing: Seed of Regrowth/
windhereded seed? )cant actually think of how that would work without tearing mathy apart with the current understanding of Boenys meta-rules.)
Talisman: Belt of the Unshackled Mountain
Social: Ranald's Coin
Activated 1:
Something less situational in usefulness
Activated 2: Grounding Rod
Activated 3:
Shadow/windhereded 'oh, shit' button (that doesn't have the downsides of the Dragon Flask)
tho this is very 'up in the air' when or if we can get around to it, so I agree that we probably should be thinking more about 'git good' right now.
