White Staves w/ No Spells

[the Langolier]

I'd like to find one that JG refers to as "plain." DPsyche's Item Rarity finder doesn't offer this option, nor a Useless War Staff (which would be a nifty substitute).

JG states that plain white staves are available, but all the information I've seen mentions either a blue staff or one with a spell.

It's true plain white staves can be found in normal diablo - I have only found two myself. The reason they are not in the calculator is because they are technically not supposed to occur. They are somewhat of an anomaly. I believe they originate with a game mechanic where if a valid affix combination is not picked within a certain number of tries, the game simply exits the routine and moves on to prevent freezing the game.

Your best bet to find such a staff is on dlvl 1. This will minimize the number of spells and affixes that can spawn on the staff. In normal mode only a short staff can drop on this level, but overall you should find more of them because so few base items can drop. In nightmare all staff types can drop, but with so many other base items that can drop, there is less of a chance it will be a staff type. Beyond that there is no real way to estimate your chances of finding one.

Edit: heh.