ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

I apologize if this has been answered somewhere before; however, I am having a lot of trouble trying to figure out exactly what staff damage is comprised of.
I understand that more Magic = more damage. I also understand that Physical Power should increase damage due to Staff Mastery boosting Physical Power. This leads me to an important question: Does Strength increase the damage dealt with a staff? Strength says it increases Physical Power, so this should lead to an increase of damage, correct?
I am assuming that Spell Power has no effect on a melee staff strike. Is this correct?

Does Channel Staff function fundamentally different from a melee staff strike? I understand it ignores Armor and Accuracy checks, but is it reliant on Spell Power over Physical Power for the purpose of calculating damage? It does not seem to add any "on weapon hit" type effects (EG: Weapon of Light does not proc with Channel Staff), so I assume the skill functions much differently from a weapon hit type skill.

Thanks in advance.

Strength does increase Staff damage due to the physical power increase.
Spellpower has no effect on Staff damage.
Channel Staff doesn't do an attack with the Staff, it does a spell shot with damage based on the staffs damage.

Thank you. That is exactly what I needed to know.

I have another question, and I feel it is related enough to not warrant a new topic. From what I have observed, tooltip damage for spells reflects both +% relevant damage increases (IE: +15% Darkness Damage) and the scaling effects from respective stats or Mental/Physical/Spell power. However, I am noticing my Weapon of Light damage procs to be around 3x the listed damage when using a normal strike against a foe with neutral resistances. My assumption is the large damage boost is coming from relevant Weapon Mastery boosts, but I am having trouble isolating and proving that.

Is there anything I am missing that would result in the large damage multiplier I am experiencing? As far as my knowledge goes (which, admittedly, is very little), Weapon Mastery is the only factor unaccounted for.

Supe wrote: Is there anything I am missing that would result in the large damage multiplier I am experiencing? As far as my knowledge goes (which, admittedly, is very little), Weapon Mastery is the only factor unaccounted for.

Staff accuracy bonus increase weapon of light dmg by 4% per accuracy point

ZyZ wrote:Staff accuracy bonus increase weapon of light dmg by 4% per accuracy point

... per point by which your Accuracy exceeds your target's Defense.

Thus your bonus will vary by opponent.