I know that someone else was posting about these same problems recently (I think Verdi was actually one of them). With the way block and block efficiency are in this game, two-handed weapons really need to shine and be at least 50% better damage than one-handed weapons (if not 100%). This way there is no clear "better" setup for every situation: there is a choice between more damage dealt or more damage mitigation or maybe a special factor depending on build). As it stands now, it seems like they do at least a good job of balancing this aspect in melee weapons, but have missed the boat on ranged weapons.
I know that someone mentioned that "ranged weapons should do less damage" in a previous post, but that person clearly missed the entire point of balancing two and one-handers. We aren't saying that staff and bow damage should match melee weapons, just outdue catalyst and pistol damage respectively, otherwise they are completely useless almost every time.
Part of this is the base damage on bows and staves, part of it is the fact that attack and material damage on staves probably shouldn't even exist, and part of it is that pistols and bows have the same affixes for damage. You can check this using https://wolcendb.erosson.org/.
Bows appear to be getting the one-handed affixes ranges instead of the two-handed ranges. This is the main reason why bows are almost never used over pistols. I am wondering if it has more to do with weapon attack speeds generating the affix list instead of the number of hands required (since bows seem to be fast weapons). If that is the case, PLEASE WOLCEN just change bows to slow and give them the same affix pool as two-handed melee weapons. If you need to reduce base damage to help keep the balance of melee weapons vs. ranged weapons, then so be it. At least then, you will have made bows viable again, without have to even touch pistols.
The other huge problem mentioned above is what affixes appear on certain weapons. I can't say that I really understand why staves have attack damage at all (neither as a base value, nor as rolled affixes). The only reason I can think of why that might be helpful would be if you are trying to keep build diversity and allow people to use attack damage, but still be a spell caster, but even then they can just use a one-handed weapon and a catalyst (which is the entire point of having those types of weapon combinations). Each weapon should have a niche, and a staff should be fully for magic. This means that base damage should be spell damage, not attack damage. Additionally, as pointed out by the original poster, staves shouldn't roll +# to attack damage affixes.
You seem to have a system where certain weapons types can have certain damage type buffs (both +# to damage and +% to damage):
Swords can have +# and +% to attack damage for material, elemental and occult, Axes can have +# and +% to attack damage for material and elemental. Maces can have +# and +% to attack damage for material and occult. These all make sense because melee weapons definitely need to have inherent attack damage (probably material damage), and you are just adding in the other types of damage on top.
Pistols can have +# and +% to attack damage for material, elemental and occult (which makes sense because you want them as a option for pistol and catalyst combinations which could use any element, but don't want to give them even more spell damage since they will already have the affixes from the catalyst). Bows can have material or elemental damage as +# to damage, BUT ONLY +% to material, which seems like an oversight. It should also have the +% elemental to damage affix as an option.
Staves have +# to spell damage for elemental and occult (which totally makes sense) and no +% to damage types, since you went straight for +% spell damage (for all types). Catalysts have the same affix options as staves and with the same numbers (which again doesn't make sense if you want people to EVER use staves)
Part of the problem is that every single weapon always has physical damage as the inherent damage type on the weapon. I could see why that would be done in a game where there aren't resists to physical damage (or are at least much less than other elements), but this game doesn't fall into that category. Combine this with the fact that all melee weapons, bows and pistols can roll +% to material damage and you are ensuring that the best weapons will ALWAYS have to have only material damage affixes. This KILLS build diversity. To combat this, I would recommend that you simply increase the +% to elemental damage and +% to occult damage affixes so that the total damage is equal to the +50% material damage and inherent physical damage. The other option would be to try and have these weapons start with inherent elemental or occult damage, which not only would makes things a lot crazier, but also doesn't make as much sense.
Staves should have inherent elemental or occult damage, and it should be spell damage. Honestly, that ALONE might help balance staves and catalysts to increase build diversity, without even messing with any other affixes. You could just leave all of the normal damage categories at the top as zeros and add a line to the section below it where it says "(20-30)% Transfer Time decrease between Willpower and Rage, Basic Attack Projectiles bounce up to 2 times to Nearby Enemies in 10m radius" that says "adds 20-30 damage to spells" (which could randomly roll a specific damage type like shadow). As it stands now, staves can't roll any +# or +% material damage affixes as attacks or spells (which makes sense), so why give it physical damage to begin with?
