I'm just glad staves are effected/effect a skill at least, I never used staves in oblivion cause it felt like I was just subtracting from skills I could be upping.

great change.

Your logic is wrong. Staff is the source of power and your skill should not go up when you use it AKA Destruction, you are just shaping what is coming out of the staff. The fact that increases enchanting isn't all that logical to me either, but it is there to make staves balanced .

Your understanding is wrong.

I'm not saying it should increase the associated school, I'm saying it should increase Enchanting (what it is doing), and that Enchanting should increase the effect of using the staff (which it isn't doing).

But no matter, I might see a use for staffs, and if not, then so be it.

[theorycraft]
Maybe the enchanting skill makes staves more powerful( they are enchanted after all) and the magic school skill just might make it even better(like give it another +50%).
[/theorycraft]

Right, but having a higher skill in enchanting means you can make more powerful staves/put stronger magic on staves, so in that way, using a staff makes you stronger with staves.

That makes a lot of sense to me. Otherwise a warrior that beefed up his enchantment skill could have a staff just as powerful as an uber mage who maxed out like 3 different schools of magic. The way they have it set up, a mage will almost always be more powerful with a staff.

I dislike this. I would have thought your ability to place and seal and enchantment and the level of soul you bind it with (Enchanting perk + soul gem) would be what regulate the power of the staff, not your skill in the field of magic is uses. I mean, a sword of fire does not raise your destruction level. How does imbuing fire on touch differ so much from fire on target?

I am going to have to remake my character honestly. Bleh. Maybe I will just go pure mage, because I am finding it hard to make a warrior tank that has a range option xD

1) Only if we really can do that, I've yet to hear about staves (why is my spelling control telling me staves dont exist but staffs do?) with no magic on it.

2) That warrior wont be as powerfull as a mage, since a staff can only use 1 magic, mages 40+40+40 spells. ofcause warriors could carry more then 1 staff, but I doubt they will be able to find the pockets for 120 staves.

Ah sorry I missread your post

Hopefully enchanting skill will determine the damage, and destruction (etc) skill will determine the staff's "magicka" consumption per use. This would actually make sense, given that we now know destruction skill only decreases mana cost, but doesn't increase damage.

This news will most probably change my Sage build into a Swordsage build.
Blah, was hoping for a more pure mage setup.

Mods will fix it.

Well I think thats logical decision staffs must channel powers and be evoked by skilled users, warriors still have their other weapons on full powers, besides of this I believe staves have some minimal power value what is available for non mages and appropriate magic school skill just add bonus to this power, e.g nothing forbid you use stave but how well you can do thats depends on skills, mage who use enchanted armors and weapons without of Weapon&Armor skills also have no bonus from them, so why warrior must have equal benefits from staves usage as Mage have?

I fixed that for you

I've made peace with this decision. My Swordsage now looks more fun to play then my previous build.

Yeah, so you did...

That would be pretty lame if you can't create your own staves and enchant them with what you want. I'm pretty sure you could even do this in OB, just like with weapons. You might be right in that there are no "blank" staves, but I'm sure you'll be able to replace the magical effects that are there with your own through enchanting.

And I didn't say the warrior would be as powerful, I just said his staff would be. I know most mages would probably also be enchanters but it doesn't make much sense to me if a mage that has 100 skill level and a good chunck of the perks of say Destruction, Conjuration, and Restoration, has a staff that is no more powerful/effective than a warrior that has 100 skill in one-handed, block and enchanting.

I don't even ever play straight mage characters but I can tell you if I did I would be pretty dissapointed if my skill with the magical arts had no effect on how powerful the magic that came out of my enchanted staff were, and that some brutish Nord greatsword-swinging wild man could have that very same staff and be just as effective with it because he has skill in enchanting, even though he couldn't cast any of my higher level spells, or with any effectiveness.

With that theory enchanting swords and armor with destructive or magical properties should be tied to thier respective skill, but they're not, they are tied to the enchantment skill, and so should staves.

I think a key distinction is that staves are NOT the same as other items we enchant and that they have reason not to be the same. They have a connection with the magical strength of the user by lore, so comparing them to swords, amulets, etc. is missing the point. They are not purely a game mechanic.

Also, as another poster already pointed out, both enchant and magic skill are improving staves. Enchant determines how easily you recharge the staff, the skill determines how quickly you use up the staff. In addition, they might both impact the strength of the spell through perks.

Does anyone know how Soul Squeezer perk works? It says "Soul gems provide extra magicka for recharging" which could possibly mean that each time fill a soul gem you get some mana. So in conjuration with conjured weapons which when perked auto trap target's soul you could have an endless supply of mana provided you have enough soul gems.

My initial impression was bad about this, it seemed to make staves not better for mages but almost exclusive to mages. But 2 things, we will have to see how it scales are staves still effective without the keyed skill or are they worthless, also initially I thought it was off to require 5 skills to wield one item type, but if you think of staves as weapons for the mage tree it is 5 sure, but the warrior tree requires 3 so it isn't that bad.

So it wouldn't be so endless
You could say the same about magicka potions.
More magicka for recharging means that the soul gem will recharge more charges of the enchanted item ( charges == magicka contained in enchanted items )

Yeah I'm pretty sure it works something like this^

First part is right on my point my man. I didn't even know that about the lore though, I was just going to say that I was under the (rather strong) impression that enchanting weapons and armor with a magical effect is just that, an "effect", but a staff is channeling YOUR power through it. It may be casting a spell you don't normally or have never cast, or don't even know, but it's still tapping into your inner magical strength, or rather your knowledge of how the magic of Nirn works, whereas magical effects placed on weapons and armor are static.

Make no mistake, +10 Fire Damage on your long sword is absolutely a passive effect. Until you hit someone. Your sword ALWAYS has that ability and it's ALWAYS active, just like the +20 stamina on your greaves. The difference is you can't see the effect until you strike something that the effect can happen on. But it is still just drawing upon the magic that you imbued the weapon with. A staff is an extention of yourself.