Well I never staked much either because I was very poor way back when pre-07 update, but I think you got the right idea. In staking, Tanks win most of the time, its all about dps (damage per second) because most fights are foodless anyways. If you don't take damage, doesn't matter how little you can actually deal you will still always win and be able to laugh for the entirety of the 10 minutes it takes you to kill them slowly as they smack 0's on you constantly and yell things such as "defense noob!" and "ffs HIT!".
Also, I believe the wilde items such as CVLS will show more prominently in staking because tbh I don't see them being worth it to use in normal pking. In there present situation you can just do like me and use it til it's almost fully degraded and then just die with it, granting yourself its full value in dp%, which you will aquire the cost of the VLS back within your next 3 or 4 drops due to the massive dp% increase, then just buy another one and do it again.
Now that you only obtain items they had on, or in the dueling case the items that they staked, you could pick and choose when to use the vls so that you only degrade it when you are in a fight that will grant you plenty of winnings to buy another one.