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Does anyone actually ever use their staffs?

I mean they don't don't belong to any skill, so you don't get any experience using them.

You get no experience from whatever spell you have enchanted on it.

Honestly, even with my Mage characters, it's better to use another type of weapon or just rely on my spells.

I barely ever use a staff because if there is a good enchantment on one, there's barely any charge.
Plus, the only good spell on a staff that wouldn't make sense to do with a spell is paralyze from the mage's guild quest.

Absolutely. Paralyze is the only spell I ever enchant my Mage's Guild staff with.
Even then, though, I just end up putting it in one of my houses and leaving it there.

Nah. Staffs are pretty much useless most of the time.

Good. Im glad Im not the only one to see this problem.

In the future, Im hoping that Bethsheda will fix this issue.

Possibly have the staffs generate skill experience for whatever school of magic is enchanted on it or something to that effect.

Anything to make staffs more useful in the next game.

i had a mages staff with paralysis which was the best use of it imo (mages guild quest), and i would occasionally use apotheosis or sheogorath's staff, but i agree that they are all pretty much a waste of time.

I think that staves should be able to hit and parry like blunt weapons, their charges should be used with the normal 'use magic' key whilst still allowing the melee attack as usual. And since they would need to be repaired, I'd have no problem with a staff becoming smashed and 'unmagical' if you allowed it to get so damaged that it broke.
It could easily work, all the buttons are already laid out there even on the 360 pad and i haven't a notion why you can't especially since the game already makes a big thing about making your own mages staff.
You could go on quests to find the various materials for your characters staff - some might make strong staves which don't break easily, some could allow for bigger spells or more charges, or additional damage with melee attacks (after all, a monk staff might give him a 10 point constant shield as its enchantment and then be mainly used as a martial hitting and defending weapon). Staves could be made from wood, metal, rock, or the bones, claws and teeth of huge beasts, etc

The staff should be a weak(ish) damage all-round defensive weapon and would be great for monks, pilgrims and mages as an understated but dependable and potentially pwning piece of equipment. Small melee damage, large amount of hit points before it's broken, and the additional magical ability. Whack!

they could amplify a spell by a percentage

You have been blessed with the grace of St.Arvin!

I would have to agree that the staves are not fitted properly to the game and should also be a melee weapon since thats what a monk would use as a walking stick.

Not only are staffs completely useless (no matter what kind of enchantment is on them), they're look lame/ugly as Hell. Obviously the folks at Bethesda didn't put much effort into the design, like a lot of other things in the game. Face it, the base game (or Vanilla) is a piece if crap, a lot of items and action that should've been in the game were left out, and are only available through mods(thank goodness for them). Without mods, Oblivion is trash. I don't even know how it was named game of the year.
And even with mods, the AI is seriously dumb.

i disagree. it is an amazing game, and with all that the AI is supposed to do, they cant be very smart. that would take too much and cause games to crash and such. also, the staves aren't useless, they actually make sense as i see it i guess, because Bethesda didn't make this game so people could fly through it only getting the best equipment or to level up as soon as possible, they made it for people to enjoy the experience. if your idea of enjoying it is level up as soon as possible or getting the best equipment or whatever, other peoples may be different. so a staff not giving experience isn't a bad thing. And what happens when a mage gets silenced? also, what happens when your level 4 completely mundane warrior has to fight a ghost? i would much rather have a staff than scrolls.

I have a couple of really good ones i got off somebody that i save for an "oh crap" moment. Other than that i use them cause they look cool. This is a problem i have with the game, if im walking around like a badass i just want to see a large sword on my back, not a large sword and arrows that i previously use. Ill unequip the arrows just because they annoy me. However if i have a staff and im a mage ill use it cause it looks right, and cool.

I dont care what anyone says wabbajack is awesome.

EDIT: I will admit that one of my biggest problems with the staff is that you cant fight with it. Nearly every martial art there is has a staff form. Then again i have a huge problem with the fighting system.

i dont care for the enchantment, but it is cool

The stave's mages use and the one's monks use are different in design and purpose. Mages use them for offense and to focus their power, while monks use them for defense and counterattacks.

Stave's can be used as an alternate way of casting spells. Its true that most of the good one's are few and hard to find, but it's a way to cast spells that won't take from your magika. Plus you can combine the effects of a spell with a staff, like using a weakness to magic spell with Apotheosis. I know that staff only has 12 charges, but the result of that combo would make a powerful attack that can help take down a few of the strongest enemies. Totem stave's are useful as well, especially for a low level character as a 20 point damage spell is very useful at that point. It can also be used at medium levels when combined with chain weakness spells. CWS can also make the Mage's Stave's of fire, frost and shock along with Apotheosis(as long as the spell has all four weakness effects) very powerful. Also the Mage's Staff of Paralysis is indeed useful as a similar spell would be very expensive. Efficient levelers can also use stave's in place of spells to avoid magic experience.

No, staffs are useful, but it depends. If you're playing the game at a difficulty where nothing ever has a shot at killing you and all you're battling things for is money and experience, then yeah, they're fairly useless. But if you're playing a very difficult game, where every encounter is a test of survival and your most immediate concern is your health bar (and not your destruction level), then no, staffs are a godsend. I mean, at the highest level, a mage's staff will do 80 pts of elemental damage a pop, not to mention staffs like apotheosis or others. Point being that staffs are like an overpowered bow, so long as you get past the lack of experience given; longrange, rapid-fire, low-risk, and strong. Oh, and Azura's star makes recharging them easy.
In vanilla, though, that hard game I just described isn't really present. Then they are rather meaningless.

That's a bit harsh. Although I don't really use staves, and don't bother with them, I love Oblivion, just as it is - in fact I just reinstalled it with no mods at all. Compared to most other RPGs I've played, Oblivion has a lot to offer, even on its own.

Staves allow you to cast two different spells in rapid succession.

Cast a preparatory spell, like a combo Weakness one and, if you time it right (just as your hand is swinging back down to grab the staff), you can shoot off the staff's spell very quickly thereafter.

Who's St Arvin?

Staves have always been used as melee weapons by wizards in RPGs. In D&D it was the only 1d6 damage weapon a magic user could use. In Lord of the Rings Gandalf on occasion uses it to hit people (i was suprised Oblivion didn't take more notice of his fighting style considering how much LOTR influence is in the game) so i wouldn't limit this application just for monks.

I understand that they simplified the TES game a lot for Oblivion and took out a load of stuff from Morrowind. On balance i agree with what they did, Mw was over complicated and contained of a fair amount of useless detail, but we definitely lost some good bits between TES3 and TES4. Staves in Mw were weapons but you had to go into the spell menu to use the enchantments, i thought they had fixed that in Ob but instead they'd basically made staves into wands (ie primarily spell use)

I'm not too concerned about what skills you train in whilst using a staff. If they 'fix' it, you might get blunt for hitting, block for parrying and nothing for firing it (after all most staves were enchanted by others so you will be using effects you have no knowledge of and therefore can't gain experience in. In fact, scrolls, staves, rings, etc exist to allow anyone access to any magic).
Or, they could add enchant back into the game as a skill. This would spoil the 7/21 skill to stat ratio but they will probably overhaul the game rules anyway. They could also add spear (or thrown) back into combat and disguise to stealth to even things up with the 3 skill groups.
But enchant would be linked to making (and using) scrolls, staves, soul gems etc and could add an extra aspect to gameplay. This would be great for a TES5 set in Summerset Isles.

as Dark Spark says, Weakness to magic 100% followed by Apotheosis is not to be sniffed at even if we might not be satisfied by staves in general

Im not saying Staves are useless. I think if you look hard enough, you can find a use for anything. But I just think that the system that surronds the Staves in Oblivion could have been so much better if they had given it a little thought.

It would be nice just to have a choice in what the Staff looks like. I mean at least have different wood desgins. God, is that too much to ask.

I put fire in my Mages staff, when im a warrior. (Yeah, im a warrior in Mage's Guild...), just so i can kill Ghosts quick when i have no charge left in my weapons. I dont use them to anything else.

...

I still didn't say they were Useless. I was just asking what other people use them for, if anything.

With my new mage, I made my staff for an exact purpose, to silence my enemies. My mage is the usualy High Elf with The Apprentice birthsign. But the difficulty is also upped a bit, so that creates an issue with the damage I take from spells. The staff fixes that without having to waste precious magika on an enemy.

In short, yes I use mine.

Ummm... I think its going to hard for people to agree with you there. I mean, come on, why would you say that Oblivion is a piece of crap on a site full of Oblivion lovers. Common sense much? I hate to be so mean but, that was harsh.

The best saint ever! The saint of Skooma!

But anyways, I agree that you should be able to hit people with it gandalf-style!

! ! !
not a mages staff of paralysis?!