A Guide to Mages comment thread

[playingtokrush]

Skandranon, don't be afraid to dismiss wands as the garbage that they really are. Wand Specialization (priests have it too) has to be one of the worst talents in the game, across all classes. Blizzard needs to reconsider the current implementation of wands.

I won't go into the details here, but I have a wand suggestion/discussion/rant thread going in the worldofwarcraft.com forums, if anyone's interested in checking it out or contributing to it:

How to fix the wand problem

[MongoJerry]

Skandranon, don't be afraid to dismiss wands as the garbage that they really are.  Wand Specialization (priests have it too) has to be one of the worst talents in the game, across all classes.  Blizzard needs to reconsider the current implementation of wands.

As a priest, I keep my wand skill up pretty high, because it's my primary damage dealer when in instance parties. That and the occational SW:Pain when mana isn't too big of an issue. My parties understandably want me to use my mana to heal them, so having a mana-free ranged attack is quite helpful.

The damage bonus on Wand Specialization is too small to make it worth the investment, though.

[playingtokrush]

As a priest, I keep my wand skill up pretty high, because it's my primary damage dealer when in instance parties.  That and the occational SW:Pain when mana isn't too big of an issue.  My parties understandably want me to use my mana to heal them, so having a mana-free ranged attack is quite helpful.

Try leveling up the resist stick as a mage. Unless you're constantly in parties who don't mind you spewing resists and piddly damage at mobs, wands are very much garbage for mages.

On a side note, the same thing goes for shadow spec'd priests who solo often and warlocks who do more in combat than DoT and wand spam while the voidwalker tanks.

The damage bonus on Wand Specialization is too small to make it worth the investment, though.

There's no contention here. It's also important to note that you have to waste 10% of your talent points to max Wand Specialization, which makes it one of the worst talents in the game.

[Ruvanal]

Try leveling up the resist stick as a mage.  Unless you're constantly in parties who don't mind you spewing resists and piddly damage at mobs, wands are very much garbage for mages.
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I must stongly disagree with this. I have not had any major problems in leveling up Littledude's wand skill. Most of the skill up has been done while soloing, not when in parties.

If your wand skill is too much below the mob_level*5 point then you sill usually end up getting lots of resists and no skill ups when using the wand. The game is taking into acount your chance of actually doing damage when awarding the skill ups. It actually works more like the fishing skill in that if the target mob is too high compared to the skill then it will substitute in a failure message (Resists) without telling you that the target is effectively beyond your skill to hurt.

Many players make the mistake of starting this weapon skill up late and then give up after only short amount of effort in trying to raise the skill. I have been able to keep the skill up at a reasonable level just by using the wand when a mob is starting to run that will not go and draw more mobs in when it runs around. This usually gives me from 1 to 4 shots at the mob and about every 1.5 shots on average give me a skill up when fighting mobs of +/-4 levels of my own. Also the DPS of my current wand (not the best posible for my level) is about half that of using Scorch. A decent comprimise to use when low on mana and needing to keep an out on adds to be sheeped or using Fire Blast to stop a fleeing mob an in instance situation.

[playingtokrush]

This usually gives me from 1 to 4 shots at the mob and about every 1.5 shots on average give me a skill up when fighting mobs of +/-4 levels of my own.

You must not be playing the same game as I am.

What level is your mage?

[MongoJerry]

You must not be playing the same game as I am.

What level is your mage?

When your skill is well below your maximum possible skill, you skill up very quickly. So, if your wand skill is at 150/250, then you'll skill up fast. It's only when you start getting close the the maximum amount that the skillup rate slows to a crawl.

[WarLocke]

When your skill is well below your maximum possible skill, you skill up very quickly.  So, if your wand skill is at 150/250, then you'll skill up fast.  It's only when you start getting close the the maximum amount that the skillup rate slows to a crawl.
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This seems to apply to all other weapon skills as well, and is one of the things I really, really like in WoW. When I first started playing, I was still in the EQ mindset of 'must keep all my skills near max, or it'll be impossible to level/use them later on'.

Then, when I saw how fast you could go from 0/80 to 60ish/80 (in under ten minutes for that particular example) I was boggled. Now I don't have to worry about carrying a bunch of weapons and switching out when a skill hits max (or 1 below max, which is usually the practical per-level limit pre-30ish) I just carry the best weapon available (and maybe a 2h alternate and/or an offhand item in the bank) and only switch to upgrade. It might cripple my melee output for a few fights, but it's much less of a hassle than trying to keep up all the skills all the time. B)

[Skandranon]

When your skill is well below your maximum possible skill, you skill up very quickly.  So, if your wand skill is at 150/250, then you'll skill up fast.  It's only when you start getting close the the maximum amount that the skillup rate slows to a crawl.
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I have to agree with playingtokrush. My level 52 mage was at 181/260 wand skill, and it was twelve to fifteen "resists" to gain a point of wand skill. If 80 points behind the pace is "close", then Blizzard needs to redefine close.

[Skandranon]

Skandranon, don't be afraid to dismiss wands as the garbage that they really are.  Wand Specialization (priests have it too) has to be one of the worst talents in the game, across all classes.  Blizzard needs to reconsider the current implementation of wands.
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I definitely agree that wands, as currently constituted, are generally junk for mages, and probably should have said that much. In the next revision, I've split off a section for wands under Equipment, instead of discussing wands in general under Wand Specialization. The only reason I gave a little hope was that my statement is true - wands outdamage all other ranged weapons - and I can't think but that there's some potential there. No other class has a +5% to damage per point talent (imagine if warriors had a +5% per point damage talent for swords!) and so I think Wand Specialization will deserve careful study in light of any possible wand change.

That said, I think they're fine for priests - a good, mana-free source of ranged damage for specific use in instances. We may have to resign ourselves to wands' uselessness for mages, simply because any change that makes a mage notice might prove far too powerful in the hands of a warlock or priest.

[Skandranon]

If your wand skill is too much below the mob_level*5 point then you sill usually end up getting lots of resists and no skill ups when using the wand.  The game is taking into acount your chance of actually doing damage when awarding the skill ups.  It actually works more like the fishing skill in that if the target mob is too high compared to the skill then it will substitute in a failure message (Resists) without telling you that the target is effectively beyond your skill to hurt.

Not quite so sure of that. I've gained a skillup off of a "resist"; in fact, off an entire chain of resists with nary a hit to be seen. Just like other classes can skillup off misses: when my paladin started learning swords, she hit air on her first fifteen or so swings and got a skill point on each one.

Many players make the mistake of starting this weapon skill up late and then give up after only short amount of effort in trying to raise the skill.

Wands are very difficult to start early: it's possible to go quite a number of levels without seeing one. My mage in beta and my current one in release didn't see one until the Spark of the People's Militia quest reward, at around 17 or so. The lowest level wand I've seen requires level 7, so the only way to start early is to twink one - putting the burden of skilling up wands on a baby mage at a level where they are extremely ill-equipped to do so.

I have been able to keep the skill up at a reasonable level just by using the wand when a mob is starting to run that will not go and draw more mobs in when it runs around.  This usually gives me from 1 to 4 shots at the mob and about every 1.5 shots on average give me a skill up when fighting mobs of +/-4 levels of my own.  Also the DPS of my current wand (not the best posible for my level) is about half that of using Scorch.  A decent comprimise to use when low on mana and needing to keep an out on adds to be sheeped or using Fire Blast to stop a fleeing mob an in instance situation.
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I've never seen that rate of skilling up. This is how I work on wands, too, but only infrequently as there are many times when I am soloing in mob-infested areas.

[Treesh]

Wands are very difficult to start early: it's possible to go quite a number of levels without seeing one.  My mage in beta and my current one in release didn't see one until the Spark of the People's Militia quest reward, at around 17 or so.  The lowest level wand I've seen requires level 7, so the only way to start early is to twink one - putting the burden of skilling up wands on a baby mage at a level where they are extremely ill-equipped to do so.

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Lesser magic wands from enchanters only take level 5 and they are a really low skill enchanting item as well which makes it much easier to use wands really early on. Sure, not everyone who can use wands wants to be an enchanter, but the wands are really easy for starting enchanters to make.

[playingtokrush]

When your skill is well below your maximum possible skill, you skill up very quickly.  So, if your wand skill is at 150/250, then you'll skill up fast.  It's only when you start getting close the the maximum amount that the skillup rate slows to a crawl.

I know all this, but tell me what a good a wand skill 10 or more points below the cap is when you're fighting similar level mobs. A 40-50% resist rate on something which already does piddly damage makes for some tedious polishing-off of mobs.

[playingtokrush]

I definitely agree that wands, as currently constituted, are generally junk for mages, and probably should have said that much.  In the next revision, I've split off a section for wands under Equipment, instead of discussing wands in general under Wand Specialization.  The only reason I gave a little hope was that my statement is true - wands outdamage all other ranged weapons - and I can't think but that there's some potential there.  No other class has a +5% to damage per point talent (imagine if warriors had a +5% per point damage talent for swords!) and so I think Wand Specialization will deserve careful study in light of any possible wand change.

Skandranon, you obviously know the ins and outs of the mage class quite well, and I agree with basically everything you've stated, except this.

In practice, wands don't outdamage other ranged weapons at all. Their apparent higher DPS is negated by the fact that other weapons have increased DPS from ammunition as well as ranged attack power. Ranged attack power has absolutely no effect on wand damage. It is a common misonception as wands appear to be treated as ranged weapons, but it is not the case.

Here's another tidbit of my vast knowledge of wand mechanics that I'll impart upon the lounge: the wand damage type stat is purely cosmetic. Don't believe me? Try using a wand that does fire damage on any fire elemental. It does standard damage, despite fire elementals being immune to fire spells.

That said, I think they're fine for priests - a good, mana-free source of ranged damage for specific use in instances. We may have to resign ourselves to wands' uselessness for mages, simply because any change that makes a mage notice might prove far too powerful in the hands of a warlock or priest.

Of course, this only applies to priests who do a large amount of grouping while functioning as the primary healer.

Actually, if you'll note in my wand thread in the Blizzard forums, I made a perfectly balanced suggestion to fix the primary problem of wands for all three caster classes: make the wand skill auto-ranking. It would take a quite the perusing of the thread, but one can see that I have shown that there is no possible way that this change would be unbalancing. No one has been able to prove otherwise (good luck trying; it's impossible).

I also think it's fairly clear how that change would improve the overall gameplay experience for casters as well.

By the way, you've written a great mage guide so far.

[Skandranon]

Lesser magic wands from enchanters only take level 5 and they are a really low skill enchanting item as well which makes it much easier to use wands really early on.  Sure, not everyone who can use wands wants to be an enchanter, but the wands are really easy for starting enchanters to make.
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Your point is well taken. It shouldn't be too hard for anyone who wants to skill up wands early to get a wand to do it with. I'm not so sure wands are actually useful at that low of a level, but I'm not convinced that they're all that useful for mages at any level.

[Skandranon]

In practice, wands don't outdamage other ranged weapons at all.  Their apparent higher DPS is negated by the fact that other weapons have increased DPS from ammunition as well as ranged attack power.  Ranged attack power has absolutely no effect on wand damage.  It is a common misonception as wands appear to be treated as ranged weapons, but it is not the case.

I did point out the lack of ammo. I didn't know ranged attack power didn't apply, but mages' ranged attack power adds a fairly forgettable 1.5 or so dps even at high levels. Whether it applies or not is academic. I agree that they're not a problem now, but a typical knee-jerk Blizzard response could be very bad.

Here's another tidbit of my vast knowledge of wand mechanics that I'll impart upon the lounge: the wand damage type stat is purely cosmetic.  Don't believe me?  Try using a wand that does fire damage on any fire elemental.  It does standard damage, despite fire elementals being immune to fire spells.

I don't believe you, only because I used my Nether Force wand on something cursed with Curse of Shadow and immediately got better damage. Fire wands may not do fire damage, but I don't think you can say that the damage type stat for all wands is meaningless. Arcane wands clearly do Arcane damage.

Actually, if you'll note in my wand thread in the Blizzard forums, I made a perfectly balanced suggestion to fix the primary problem of wands for all three caster classes: make the wand skill auto-ranking.  It would take a quite the perusing of the thread, but one can see that I have shown that there is no possible way that this change would be unbalancing.  No one has been able to prove otherwise (good luck trying; it's impossible).

I think this would be a fairly safe change. Wands would be much more useful if we could dispense with the long training time, and even auto-ranking wands wouldn't be used frequently.

[MongoJerry]

Not quite so sure of that.  I've gained a skillup off of a "resist"; in fact, off an entire chain of resists with nary a hit to be seen.  Just like other classes can skillup off misses: when my paladin started learning swords, she hit air on her first fifteen or so swings and got a skill point on each one.

Oh, yes, absolutely! It's just like any other weapon skill. You skillup whether you hit or miss.

Of course, this only applies to priests who do a large amount of grouping while functioning as the primary healer.

Which, after level 40, is basically *all* priests. :lol:

[Ruvanal]

You must not be playing the same game as I am.

What level is your mage?
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Littledude is level 31 at the time of this posting. His wand skill at the time I made the other post was 132/155. What I do not see from you here or apparently in the thread that you are referring to is any factual data to use to see your real postion on where you are at. While you refer to the thread on the WoW forums as "a wand suggestion/discussion/rant thread"; all I really see there is lots of ranting, a minor suggestion and not much discussion. Very light on anyone stating what their skills are at or what level of mobs they are trying to use them against.

Now I will retract the portion that I said about "about every 1.5 shots on average give me a skill up". From running some data samples out, the rate is showing to be about 1 skill up per about 20 shots in the sampling that I took. The reason for the difference is a part of human nature at when doing a casual observation over actually doing hard records of the events. In my normal course of play at shooting at a 'fleeing' mob to do the finish off I may get from 1-4 shots at them, but it usually would only take me 1 or maybe 2 shots to finish the mob off in over 80% of the cases. Doing the human thing of taking note of things of importance like getting a skill up and tending to not bother to remember the cases where one does not have anything noteworthy in the fight happen is what can lead to the think of only requiring 1 or 2 hits to get a skill up.

Following is some of the data that I collected.

Skill:133/155 target Worgen level 27, 19 shots: 0 resists, 18 hits, 1 critical, +1 skill.

Skill:134/155 target Crocolisk level 31, 47 shots: 21 resists, 26 hits, 0 critical, +4 skill.

Skill:137/155 target Crocolisk level 31, 39 shots: 22 resists, 16 hits, 1 critical, +1 skill.

Skill:138/155 target Ogre level 28, 22 shots: 0 resists, 22 hits, 0 critical, +2 skill.

Skill:140/155 target Ogre level 28, 20 shots: 0 resists, 20 hits, 0 critical, +0 skill.

Skill:140/155 target Ogre level 29, 23 shots: 0 resists, 23 hits, 0 critical, +1 skill.

Skill:141/155 target Ogre level 30, 26 shots: 1 resists, 23 hits, 2 critical, +1 skill.

Skill:142/155 target Tiger level 31, 31 shots: 6 resists, 24 hits, 1 critical, +0 skill.

Do you have any data like your level, wand skill level and level of mobs that you are using the wand against? This is a Game Mechanics forum that goes more off of hard numbers of observation than rant like statements of "...dismiss wands as the garbage that they really are." to make its cases.

Some minor analysis of the above. For mods any appropriate skill of theirs in question usually set a level*5 just as the players max of their skill is usually at the their level. The worst cases for the resist problem was when using the wand skill against a mob that was 4 levels over the effective level of the wand skill (138/5=27 vs. a level 31 mob). Even then the resist rate was only about 50% ( (21+22)/(47+39)=50% ). The resist rate was slightly higher than that though as the first sampling againt a level 31 crocolisk had a number of partial resists where the damage done was well below average for the wand; this was also the case where the fastest skill ups occured at.

Skandranon:

QUOTE(Ruvanal @ Jan 21 2005, 11:25 AM)
If your wand skill is too much below the mob_level*5 point then you sill usually end up getting lots of resists and no skill ups when using the wand.  The game is taking into acount your chance of actually doing damage when awarding the skill ups.  It actually works more like the fishing skill in that if the target mob is too high compared to the skill then it will substitute in a failure message (Resists) without telling you that the target is effectively beyond your skill to hurt.

Not quite so sure of that. I've gained a skillup off of a "resist"; in fact, off an entire chain of resists with nary a hit to be seen. Just like other classes can skillup off misses: when my paladin started learning swords, she hit air on her first fifteen or so swings and got a skill point on each one.

You are missing what I am saying here. But first let me point to some of how things were displayed in the closed beta on this matter compared to now. In the early parts of the beta when you were using a wand (and some of the other caster skills prior to their auto-skill up when leveling) you would get messages that said 'Miss' when used against a target that was several levels above your effective skill. Occasionaly you would get a 'Resists' message in there and that was when you would get your skill up on the wand (or the caster skill in question). Due to the skill up proceedures not working as the developers were intending at that time (it took a lot more successes to get a skill up then than it does now) they had to implement the auto-skill up to allow the casters a chance to keep up with their skill compared to the rate that the melee classes could keep up their skills (they could get in x2-x3 the number of swings as most spell caster could get in their attacks and the casters usually had to spread their skill ups across severl catagories like fire, frost and arcane).

Then about 2 to 3 months prior to the end of the closed beta the designers changed how the various failure messages were being delivered to the players. Things like fishing no longer gave you a direct message that your skill was not high enough for the area, it would give you the sequence of fishing as usual, you would just end up getting lots of "fish got away" or "no fish hooked" messages and you had to infer that you got to a point beyond your skills ability. For a skills like the wand or spell casting the 'miss' messages (a blant point that it was exceeding your skill to even go against) started to become 'resists' that left the player near clueless to whither the skill was not good enough to have an effect or if the target was in truth just very high in it resists. So what at in the early closed beta might have shown as

miss-miss-miss-miss-miss-miss-resist-miss-miss-miss-miss

would now show as

resist-resist-resist-resist-resist-resist-resist-resist-resist-resist-resist

Note that only the seventh one in each of the sequece is one that would count as a potentional hit to get the skill up off of. It is just a lot less obvious that was where the skill ups are coming from now compared to how you could see them happening in the earlier closed beta. As the difference in the effective level of the skill to the mobs level get too large these resists that allow skill ups will become very infrequent, but they will more likely give you a skill up when you get one. Hence if you are at a point in effective skill that you are getting lots of hits-that-are-resisted as opposed to misses-that-show-as-resists, you will likely get strings of skill up happening.

A note on the Lesser Magic Wands that Treesh pointed out. They are not soul bound and can be passed onto other players when you get a better wand to replace them with. These wands are instrumental to allowing a player to do as described above in getting off an occasional wand shot when out soloing at lower levels. I was doing this from teh start of the retail for just this reason, not waiting till I had to spam the wand to get it up to a functional level. This is the way to get the skill moving in the early game and does not leave you in situation of having to spam the skill massively later on to just get it started. This is what is turning many mages against the wands since they do not learn to use them early enough.

Even the usage of a wand for 1 or 2 shots at the beging of many instance pulls would allow a steady increase in the skill instead of a mage using things like Fireballs as opening moves that keep pulling aggro off of the tanks before the tanks has a chance to build up the aggro-lock.

Skandranon:

This is how I work on wands, too, but only infrequently as there are many times when I am soloing in mob-infested areas.

Are making sure that you reposistion your self during the fight so that when a social mob that will flee is going to run away from its other social associates? I do this regualarly even in mob infested areas since there is usually an area I just cleared that I can herd them toward. Just safer overall to do it this way in my opinion.

playingtokrush:

Actually, if you'll note in my wand thread in the Blizzard forums, I made a perfectly balanced suggestion to fix the primary problem of wands for all three caster classes: make the wand skill auto-ranking. It would take a quite the perusing of the thread, but one can see that I have shown that there is no possible way that this change would be unbalancing. No one has been able to prove otherwise (good luck trying; it's impossible).

Then to keep balance the missiles skills of warriors and rogues should also get this type of auto-ranking? They too have the damage problem verses to low of a skill when using their missle weapons (not ranged skills). They can tolerate the situation more since they are usually not as concerned with the damage as they are with getting the mobs attention, so you do not hear them grumbling about it as much. Then if you are going to auto-rank the missle weapon skills for warriors and rogues, why not all the missle weapon skills for other classes like the hunters? But wait, that then is the hunters main attack skill and to keep it in line for other classes they would need to auto-rank the other classes main attack skills. At this point why even have any skill up concerns for any weapons? It is this kind of chain arguments that would errupt through the masses of players that is most likely going to keep the situation as is. This is beacuse what you propose would be taken as unbalancing to most others. There were some die hard warrior and rogue players that were not at all pleased in the beta that the spell casters were getting auto-ranking on most of their skills when it was put into effect. I am sure it would be worse if it was changed so that their is nothing that mages needed to skill up on to function in the game. With no skill ups needed for wands, many caster players would not even be concerned with using whatever melee weapons were at their disposal since it would be easier to keep the damage output up with a wand than to bother to skill up the melee weapon. I have noticed no stuttering when using a wand and have never had a wand to be dissarmed in combat, which would make it the ideal weapon to use when in close quarters compared to most other options. The other classes that do not use wands have to either contend with using weapons that can be disarmed or spell skills that can be stuttered in those situations.

MongoJerry:

Oh, yes, absolutely! It's just like any other weapon skill. You skillup whether you hit or miss.

I have to disagree with this based on what my experience was in the early and late closed beta were like. Part of it I stated above in that in the early closed beta you could more easily see the when you had an out right attack you could not connect with and an attack that was considered a potential hit but was instead resisted. During an extended period in the beta the skill ups for wands was broken in that apparently the game was indexing the wrong weapon skill to grant the skill up to (and since most classes did not have that skill there ended up being no skill up granted and no message generated when it should have happened). From what I remember of your posts at that time, Neriad was already at or near level 60 so it would not have affected you much since you were already keeping your wand skill near max all the time anyway. But for some of us that continued to level up during that period, our wand skill was stuck at the lower level as we contiuned to have to go against higher and higher level mobs as we leveled. When they did fix the wand skill so that it would skill up, my mage Tana's skill was about half of what was needed to have an effect on the mobs she was facing (~150 skill or effective against about level 30 mobs and Tana going against level 55-60 mobs). The result for her then was just masses of resists with about 1 in 50 resulting in a skill up. By your statements of how the skill ups should have been occuring, she should have rapidly brought her skill up to within 15% of max. It was no where even close to that rate. To correct the problem, I took her back to an area that had mobs that were about 3 to 6 levels higher than what her effective skill was capable of dealing with. It was there that the skill ups started rolling in at a rate of 1 in 5 to 1 in 8 of using the wand skill. That was more in fitting with the skill needing to have the potential of doing damage than just skilling up off of misses.

edit:fixed a bad quote tag.

[WarLocke]

Are making sure that you reposistion your self during the fight so that when a social mob that will flee is going to run away from its other social associates?  I do this regualarly even in mob infested areas since there is usually an area I just cleared that I can herd them toward.  Just safer overall to do it this way in my opinion.
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Apologies for the derail, but I have to ask: How are you doing this? It seems to me like the direction a mob fless in is mostly random - while fleeing away from you is fairly common, I've had mobs run in other directions, or even straight past/through me, nearly as often. :(

[Skandranon]

Note that only the seventh one in each of the sequece is one that would count as a potentional hit to get the skill up off of.  It is just a lot less obvious that was where the skill ups are coming from now compared to how you could see them happening in the earlier closed beta.  As the difference in the effective level of the skill to the mobs level get too large these resists that allow skill ups will become very infrequent, but they will more likely give you a skill up when you get one.  Hence if you are at a point in effective skill that you are getting lots of hits-that-are-resisted as opposed to misses-that-show-as-resists, you will likely get strings of skill up happening.

Fascinating. I'll be sure to give this a test, but just thinking it through, this explanation does correspond well with my own experiences. I wasn't taking numbers, but skilling up on trolls in Zul'Farrak, I felt that my wand skillup rate was in fact improving slightly, and couldn't quite understand why. As soon as I can, I'll try to gather some numbers.

Are making sure that you reposistion your self during the fight so that when a social mob that will flee is going to run away from its other social associates?  I do this regualarly even in mob infested areas since there is usually an area I just cleared that I can herd them toward.  Just safer overall to do it this way in my opinion.

In general, such repositioning seems to me to imply placing myself between the mob I'm attacking and its social friends in order to drive it to an empty spot. Which is fine, except for the part where I have to get closer to the group of mobs that I desperately don't want to activate. Safety, for me, is finishing with Cone of Cold, Fireblast, and Scorch if necessary, since I can guarantee that they won't run far simply by not using wands.

[playingtokrush]

Littledude is level 31 at the time of this posting.  His wand skill at the time I made the other post was 132/155.  What I do not see from you here or apparently in the thread that you are referring to is any factual data to use to see your real postion on where you are at.  While you refer to the thread on the WoW forums as "a wand suggestion/discussion/rant thread"; all I really see there is lots of ranting, a minor suggestion and not much discussion.  Very light on anyone stating what their skills are at or what level of mobs they are trying to use them against.

The reason I never bothered to post cold, hard numbers is because it's simply not necessary to see that wands are one of the most tedious aspects of WoW. Anyone who plays a mage to 51 will realize that trying to make use of wands is a complete exercise in drudgery. First and foremost, WoW is supposed to be about good gameplay. The current implementation of wands is not good gameplay. I'm fighting for a better game; others seem to be fighting for Everquest-style tedium.

WoW servers being as wonderful as they are, I'm not able to log in right now and give you all the exact details on how much my wand sucks for me at the moment, but I'll recount for you some of my experience during my low 40's. After running Scarlet Monestary three times, spamming my wand like crazy, I was only ever able to get my wand skill up to about 8 points below the cap (at which point I leveled and it was now 13 below cap). I can only imagine how much more mindless wand spamming would be required to get one's wand skill as close to cap as all weapon-based classes have theirs at all times.

Suffice it to say there have been times in my mage's life where his wand skill has been as high as 10 below the cap, which took way too much effort on my part. Outside of instances, my only good chances to make use of my wand were when I fought mobs with fleeing AI. At that level, it is safe to assume that the mobs would generally flee at around the 250 to 300 health mark, as my approximately 270 damage Fire Blast would usually, but not always, finish off the fleeing mob. For comparison, Scorch at that level did about 150 damage, meaning two casts of Scorch did similar damage to Fire Blast.

Now, my 32-60 (46 average damage), 1.40 speed wand (with "32.9 DPS") would generally take about 5 or 6 successful hits to finish off. This would take anywhere from 10 to 20 seconds, depending on the exact health of the mob in question when it started to flee, resist rates, and critical hits. Many times, before I was able to kill the fleeing mob with my wand, it would kick out of fleeing mode and come back to attack again. Melee mobs on occasion would score more hits on me, while ranged mobs were almost guaranteed to damage me further.

So in theory I saved myself some downtime by finishing off a mob with a wand. However, instead of finishing off a mob in 3 or so seconds, I spent the time that would've just been spent drinking chipping away at it with a wand and sometimes ended up losing more health anyway. And of course you'd have to factor in that killing a mob sooner in an area with aggresive mobs is also safer.

Situations like the above have proven for me the general crappiness of wands in typical solo combat. Factor in their painfully slow skill-up rate, a general lack of opportunities to make use of them in solo combat (the majority of mobs do not have a fleeing routine, and the fact that mages are not afforded the time to slowly chip away at mobs while being pounded on, and we have what amounts to "garbage" for mages.

Additionally, the scenario described above is what I am forced to do all the time if I want my wand to be the least bit reliable when I'd actually want to use it. Regardless of any numbers that one might record, the above completely violates Blizzard's design philosophy of "World as toy," which is why wands need to be fixed.

It looks like my server has come back online, so I'm going to stop here for now. I would like to know what your testing methodology was for gathering your data, as mages are not capable of standing toe to toe with similar level mobs for the extended periods of time required to fire 30 or more wand shots. What are the stats on your wand, as well? If you want me to be more specific, you should follow suit.