Question on Dark Magic and StavesFollow

Dark magic skill affects both damage and accuracy of drain and aspir, yes. But just about everything else you said is incorrect. Dark/Pluto's increases both the accuracy AND the potency of drain/aspir as well. You should only use a dark accuracy ToM staff for drain/aspir if you're fighting a mob which is resistant. Also, when considering if a mob is resistant, do not confuse a resistant mob with one that simply takes reduced damage. In some cases, both mechanisms will apply.

The only time you should put away your Dark/Pluto's for non-resistant mobs is if you're using a damage ToM staff or a Diabolos's Pole.

Edit: Correction as explained below.

Edited, Dec 7th 2011 2:15pm by VxSote

I thought I remembered tests showing that Diabolo's Pole was not as effective as Pluto's for Drain/Aspir. Did I miss something somewhere?

Ah yes, you are correct. Unless you get into a situation where you're using a darkness affinity atma, because that would dilute the damage increase of the ToM staff slightly, but not the dark staff. But that's probably a footnote that nobody would even care about.

I'm pretty sure I posted a few times over the years explaining that Diabolos's Pole has higher potency than Pluto's. It wasn't completely clear at first because the distribution of aspir/drain damage wasn't completely understood, and the only significant evidence was a higher maximum drain/aspir. But now that we know the distribution is uniform between the max and max/2 (before resists), we know that increasing the max damage means increasing your average as well.

I never did see any evidence to support the theory that Diabolos's pole has no accuracy bonus, and it would require fairly rigorous testing to make that determination. Maybe it has been confirmed at some point though; I haven't looked for new testing on it in a long time.

Yea the nomenclature of that stuff has been a pain in the ass around here since the beginning. When talking about Dark (element) Magic and Dark (skill) Magic, be explicit. Otherwise we end up playing a rather unamusing version of "Who's On First?"