Board Thread:Dark Souls II/@comment-68.7.163.188-20150519095912/@comment-4511886-20150519110659

The parameter bonuses are more or less untouched. The only difference I can think of is that the base damage no longer affects scaling, meaning that two weapons with identical scaling actually get identical scaling now.

A casting tool's damage with a spell is dependent on the spell used. Miracles scale with Lightning, Sorcery with Magic, Hexes with Dark and Pyromancies with Fire. As such, the Black Witch's Staff is only good if you actually make use of multiple spell types at the same time.

Casting Speed scales in a way that gives diminishing returns on certain spells. For example, the Dragon Chime will for the most part not work that well with the Clear Bluestone Ring. Similarly, the slower casting tools can get a huge boost from increasing Casting Speed. It also depends on the spell used; Soul Spears will for example be boosted more by Casting Speed than Soul Arrows.