4E staff fighting feat, what is good about double weapon part?

Question

I have a question about the feat Staff Fighting, more specifically the double weapon part.

For easy reference this is the explanation of the feat from the compendium:

Benefit: You can treat the quarterstaff as a double weapon. As a double weapon, both ends of the weapon deal 1d8 damage. The primary end gains the defensive and stout properties, and the secondary end gains the off-hand property. For more on double weapons, see Adventurer’s Vault, page 10.

I checked the Adventurer's Vault but I still can't figure out exactly what big benefit double weapon has. Is it that you can have an enchantment bonus (and those extra perks except enhancements to your rolls) on both ends of the staff ? Because even without the feat I'm able to equip medic's weapon (on staff) in one hand and staff of the traveler in the other for example.

Answer 1

Double weapons are interesting. For all purposes you treat them as two separate weapons. You don't get any extra attacks with them. Both ends are enchanted with the same enchantment and other than flavor and cost efficiency they function as two separate weapons.

The big bonus to dual weapons is in cost efficiency. A two weapon ranger or other build that dual wields needs to have two magic weapons to be completely efficient, this means either using a lesser enchanted weapon in one hand or forgoing magic armor or neck slot item (unless your DM is generous with the magic item or gold drops). Using a double weapon allows you to have the same enchantment on both ends of a weapon without having to collect two magic items to do so.

As a cleric you won't get much use out of a double weapon unless you have a feat or power something that allows you to add both of your implement's enhancement bonuses to your powers. Note, that using a staff a dual weapon should prevent you from dual wielding staffs as all dual weapons are two handed (unless I am mistaken here).

Answer 2

A double weapon is considered to be two different weapons for the purpose of two weapon fighting (if your class has such powers), with one enchantment that affects both sides.

The defensive property gives you a +1 bonus to AC while you wield it, and stout means that you can consider it as a two-handed weapon when attacking with only one edge, so you can benefit more by power attack and two-handed feats. The off-hand property of the secondary end means that you do not gain penalties for dual wielding with a normal weapon to your off-hand (rangers with the appropriate class feature can wield any one handed weapon to their off-hand, when all other classes need to either carry a weapon with the off-hand property in their off-hand, or get a penatly which i cannot remember).

To sum it up, for a fighter, a barbarian or a ranger that likes to dual wield a staff the feat is a must, for a cleric, it is practically useless.