I don't know if exactly with this implementation, but we do need reasons to use staves (as other underpowered weapons like whips and scurgari).

I don't like the implementation - we certainly don't need a new weapon type - but more magical benefits from staffs would be good.

Personally, I think that, rather than having more types of staves, it would be better if there were natural benefits for casters if they use the existing staves. The basic ability could simply be that, when wielding a staff, PP regeneration is boosted by some percentage - this would work only for the caster classes. Further capabilities could be available depending on the specific class.

For instance, Elementalists could be capable of imbuing any staff they wield with an elemental power of their choice (this would not remain with the staff when unequipped). With the appropriate cost (up for discussion, my initial thought was a PP cost, but that might not be strong enough), and the property being lost on unequipping, it should act as encouragement to keep the staff equipped.

As another example, Wizards might gain the ability to increase radius of ball spells by one while the staff is wielded (again, unequipping makes it lose the effect), again with some cost to discourage repeated usage. Ability to add a stun effect could be another option for wizards.

If one of the caster classes is considered particularly hard, perhaps that class could also be capable of using a staff along with their magic to form a magical shield of some sort.

Anyway, these would basically be class powers available to caster classes when wielding staves.

How about max PP increase with equipped staff? That way, unequip might cost you some PPs...

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of this either--magic classes really do not need this boost. Max PP boost would be interesting, but not too terribly useful outside of the early game, even with the change to how HP casting works. I keep meaning to submit an RFE for actual good staves that are findable, but I keep forgetting. Staves are one of my favorite weapons, and it's sad to see them get such short thrift when they are quite powerful in the real world.

I think there's a place in the game for staves that increase max pp in the same way that armor with the random suffix does - and I'd grant such an increase to the staff of power, the staff of the magi and a much higher one on the staff of the archmagi. Or maybe the staff of power provides the PP increase, the staff of the magi increases the spells' potency and the staff of the archmagi simply does both and even harder.

Something like: staff of power +20% max PP, staff of the magi +20% to all spell effects including damage, duration and range (probably hard to implement, admittedly), and the staff of the archmagi +40% to both.

How about requiring a staff for HP casting? That is, if you aren't wielding a staff, you can't HP cast at all. If you're wielding a staff, you get a prompt like "Do you want to channel your life force through the staff to cast the spell?", so you can access the current HP casting mechanic.

I think this isn't too far-fetched because using staves to channel magical energy in some way is quite common in lore.

Perhaps non-staff weapons could sometimes have a suffix "of channeling" to also allow this.

I think that HP casting is mostly used by nonmagical class that have lots of HP and few PPs, and even that in states of emergency -- not a good idea to make it harder. HP casting should be "last save", not a career choice.

I wonder if perhaps staves could get weapon marks by casting spells and improve magic status with weapon proficiency. Or give staves two proficiencies, physical, trained by combat, and magical, trained by magic...

That means casters get hosed unless you have that specific staff - which is much more likely in the late game, which is when HP casting is fairly degenerate, as opposed to the early game, when it's fairly balanced as the last resort, as Marek14 rightly points out.

Considering the current attractiveness of HP casting, I don't think requiring a staff is going to do anything.