So after noticing how overpowered staff of the wild is compared to virtually every other staff in the game, I decided to test out how the roots scale. Turns out the staff (and all summons) are scaling strangely as well as it having the best skill level scaling in the game (outside of bow). It's to the point where I assume it might be unintended seeing as how it seems to be designed as a CC/poison weapon.
Despite the staff having its own projectile damage, the roots have much higher base physical damage compared to a summoned skeleton on top of the poison they inflict. Top it off with being able to get a max of 10 out at once if you spam cast, the immobilize effect, and a maneagable Eitr cost, it's not a surprise that it would be a powerful weapon even at baseline power.
But that's just the start. The root summmons actually have the same scaling math as the dead raiser, meaning they get 2% damage per skill level, ending up dealing triple their base damage at skill 100.
That's not everything though. Due to a bug or oversight, the roots (and all summons for that matter) also gain the enemy damage modifier of whatever difficulty you are playing on. On very hard for example, the roots will be slapping for 2x the damage they normally do. This means that at skill level 100 and playing on very hard, these bad boys will be doing 6x their base damage (which is roughly 420 blunt damage per vine hit + a potent 240 poison dot).
I would recommend not relying on the staff too much if you play higher combat difficulties for a challenge because it will trivialize the game due to the multiplier bug. I honestly think the skill level scaling is also a bit overkill due to the numbers of the staff baseline, but it's hard to say.
It's a really fun staff to use though so I hope they consider adjusting the difficulty scaling so I can use it guilt free on my hardcore playthrough.
EDIT: one of the replies lead me to testing the dead raiser and ultimately realizing that all summoned entities are being scaled by difficulty modifiers with staff of the wild just being the biggest power outlier. Logically it makes sense how it ended up like this, but ultimately, considering that all sources of player damage are reduced in higher difficulties, it feels kind of jank having the inverse happen for summons since the difference is so large. I've updated my initial post for accuracy.
