Yeah, the staff is going to be getting an overhaul after the responses I've seen, so testing it now isn't the smartest idea at the moment :P

Buuut testing the other weapon is! Because I like it, and I don't think it'll be getting changed.

The negative healing (which slowly moves to positive) along with both the freezing and stealing rates increase as the speed of the pet increases. As stated, the defense is very strong at T9. Since that defense slowly gets worse the stronger opponents are, the rate of freezing and stealing (and better heals) increases to compensate as it scales. The 4 mod slots allows for a large level of customization, which is necessary for a niche weapon such as this.

Also, 4k speed is the final tier for its hidden bonuses.

Okayyy! Staff has some new things going on. Along with a wee bit of stat buffs.

The blessing has a low proc rate on the strength version.

I think the weapon is going to stay as it is. Yeah, it can be tough when a single training lesson will bump an evenly trained pet into one or the other, but that's a perk at the same time. Need a defensive weapon? Boom. One stat, and you have it.

I really hate weapons like Prodigy Staff right now. I don't want to make any more things that are immediately OP if you have a capped pet, regardless of what the stats are. I want to make builds more important. Speed and defense need more importance. Expect to see more weapons like the staff and the focus in the future!

I'm even up for making weapons that'll allow for a low hp, high/str/def/spd build. Like if hp is less than 1000 and the others are higher than 3k, icons will get full blocked, and not just block... 100 of something. Stuff like that. Everything is on the table right now.

We don't re-release plot challengers unless we just put out a couple at a time during a special event like battle week or the recent site anniversary, and in that case we change their loot. So it's unlikely that these challengers will return, and even less likely that we'll re-release that weapon and scroll.

I don't know. It's probably a combination of things. The battle dept. has always been tiny and battle admins have always had an interest in keeping valuable weapons valuable, so when other staffers ask about re-releasing things, we say no. Top battle prizes tend to require a lot of effort to get and often go out in the smallest quantities, so we want them to retain their value to keep battlers interested in battling (why would people work so hard and spend so much SP on their pets if they only earned worthless stuff once they hit the top levels?). On top of that, we tend to consider godlies to be almost too powerful, so we really don't want every battler owning them.

I don't foresee a restatting or custom coding being given to older weapons. It'll only happen to new weapons as we release them.