Staff of air

Version 0.31: This article may not be up to date for the latest stable release of Crawl.

Type	Magical staves
Name	staff of air
Icon

A staff that increases the power of air spells cast by its wielder, and insulates them from electricity. If the wielder is skilled in Evocations and Air Magic, they can shock those struck by it.

A staff of air is a magical staff. It gives a spell enhancer to Air Magic and gives the wielder electricity resistance.

This staff can also be used in combat, functioning as a +0 staff that deals additional electricity damage:

Electricity Damage: A random amount ranging from 0 to 1.25×(Evocations/2 + Air Magic)
Chance to Activate on a Hit: (Evocations + AirMagic/2)×6.66% per hit

In addition, the Staves and Fighting skills will increase the damage done by the staff itself.

Strategy

Staves of air are one of the few non-artefact sources of rElec. It can be wise to keep a staff around to swap in. Even melee characters may want one around, e.g. swapping to the staff when teleporting away from Nikola.

History

• In 0.32, the electricity damage in melee will be reduced by half of AC.
• Prior to 0.19, staves of air would penalize casting Earth spells.
• Prior to 0.15, the staff of air would activate extra melee damage less frequently than other magical staves.
• Prior to 0.8, the chance of a staff of air auto-identifying when wielded depended on the Air Magic skill of the wielder.