Wands Uber on Test Server

[Rinnhart]

I want wands balanced so I don't die to a priest that chain heals himself and wands for damage.
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I'm a paladin. We have one interrupt. One. On a minute refresh. We're also the lowest damage class in the game, with a complete lack of any kind of burst damage. Our single strength is that we're really tough; part of that's the plate armor. Also note the absence of ranged weapons; I must be well within casting range to have any hope of winning- and I can't run away from anything besides mobs because my only spell to stop another player is also my only interrupt.

Fighting warlocks, priests, and druids we essentially must outlive their mana. Warlocks, because it takes us longer to kill a well-played warlock than their mana will last, druids and priests because they can heal themselves.

However, it's not the heals that really run down druids' and priests' manapools- it's the DDs. Even not using the few damaging abilities available to me (which isn't an option), they have much larger manapools and more efficient heals (not to mention how incredibly inefficient my damaging abilities are, comparatively).

I didn't list mages up there because it's fairly impossible to 'outlive' their mana. Without cleanse, warlocks would pretty much have us as well. If ever confronted by a mage, as a paladin, I suggest you find the nearest cliff and run off. Mages tend to follow.

So, against an evenly matched druid or priest, if the RNG is rolling evenly, we'll both hit oom with a 1/4 or so of our hitpoints left (that's referencing a dozen duels and attempted ganks). Now, assuming they don't regen enough mana for a heal or nuke (what usually happens to end the fight), I have a shot at winning. Add in a wand doing 60dps nature damage (stormrager) at the end there when all they have is a staff or dagger normally. Add 60dps all that shiny armor does jack to protect against, and I will lose every fight, because oom, I do 90dps. 90. And they still get to mitigate some of that.

No chance.

Edit: And how is waiting for the cooldown from wanding any different from waiting on the cooldown from a nuke?

Edit 2: And "simple mindedly attacking" and "you don't want to have to learn to adapt" have nothing to do with it- I cannot win a fight against someone who heals better, has higher burst damage, has higher sustained damage, and when they're out of mana still does almost as much damage as I do.

[Quark]

Edit 2: And "simple mindedly attacking" and "you don't want to have to learn to adapt" have nothing to do with it- I cannot win a fight against someone who heals better, has higher burst damage, has higher sustained damage, and when they're out of mana still does almost as much damage as I do.
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I'd like to hear other sides, but let's assume that it always goes exactly like you say. You're arguing that one good game fix doesn't go in because it would further expose an imbalance.

What's wrong with fixing both? I really don't see the problem here. Wands suck. Not because of their damage, but because of their usage. I'd rather sit and take 200 damage waiting for enough mana to get off a final scorch then use my wand. What is the problem with making wands not suck?

Deal with damage issues as they come, and as testing should expose.

[Rinnhart]

I'd like to hear other sides, but let's assume that it always goes exactly like you say.  You're arguing that one good game fix doesn't go in because it would further expose an imbalance.

What's wrong with fixing both?  I really don't see the problem here.  Wands suck.  Not because of their damage, but because of their usage.  I'd rather sit and take 200 damage waiting for enough mana to get off a final scorch then use my wand.  What is the problem with making wands not suck?

Deal with damage issues as they come, and as testing should expose.
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I don't have a problem fixing both. I have a problem with the months it's going to take to fix the balance issues during which I get to be someone's wand target.

[Concillian]

My extensive wand usage and testing with different speed wands and daggers determined that wand usage before was:

shoot wand... chargup duration = wand speed
universal cooldown applied = 1.0 second
wand specific cooldown applied = wand speed

Wand DPS = displayed wand DPS divided by 2

You could get a dagger attack in during the wand cooldown, provided dagger speed was less or equal to wand speed.


How does that compare to what is on the test server now? Is my priest going to suffer a DPS drop because he can no longer get an automatic dagger attack in-between his wandings? Because that will really suck.

[Alarick]

So, against an evenly matched druid or priest, if the RNG is rolling evenly, we'll both hit oom with a 1/4 or so of our hitpoints left (that's referencing a dozen duels and attempted ganks). Now, assuming they don't regen enough mana for a heal or nuke (what usually happens to end the fight), I have a shot at winning. Add in a wand doing 60dps nature damage (stormrager) at the end there when all they have is a staff or dagger normally. Add 60dps all that shiny armor does jack to protect against, and I will lose every fight, because oom, I do 90dps. 90. And they still get to mitigate some of that.

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I agree that this may expose some imbalance issues that currently already exist, and possible make a few situations worse. However, I see no reason that the new system will not work exactly the same as the old system.

Under the old system compared to the new, the only change to 1v1 battles is that the DPS was lower than expected because of the cooldown problem. True, this is added DPS, but it's also DPS that's supposed to be there in the first place.

A good player using wands throughout the fight would still do exactly what you're saying they'll do with the new system. Against a Paladin, shoot wands while in ranged, use heals and CC when close. In the end, I can't see why the system changes this fact.

For damage, you can resist the shots. Get a little resist gear, and wands are useless. I realize this means having specific armor for the situation, but many people say the same thing when people complain about Rogues or Shadow Preists: "Get a few items and you'll do better."

On top of this, resists are not the same as mitigated damage. It's all or nothing. The damage isn't even really magical damage. It's supposed to be nature or any other type, but it isn't. I honestly have no idea how wand damage works, because none of it is actually the type described for anything other than immunity and resistances.

Edit: And how is waiting for the cooldown from wanding any different from waiting on the cooldown from a nuke?
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The cooldown for wands is different because it's invisible. The cooldown bar only shows up for the wand, but all spells are unavailable. This means a good amount of guessing as to when a spell can be cast. In addition, the wand has "cooldowns" both before and after shooting. Because of this, the DPS suffers.

I'm really not trying to say this won't change the game at all, but I don't think it will cause such a huge imbalance as you seem to be saying it will.

[vor_lord]

Wand DPS = displayed wand DPS divided by 2

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If the above is true, you should still see an increase in DPS. My testing shows you should get full listed wand DPS now.

Since wand DPS is quite a bit better than typical dagger DPS at any level, and ATK bonus DPS for priests is pathetically insignificant, and dagger DPS is subject to armor degradation, you should see a decent DPS increase even though you can't use your dagger anymore along with the wand.

For example, instead of shooting every:

wand speed + 1.0 seconds

you shoot every:

wand speed seconds (and this I have verified)

I'm not sure I understand how you get wand DPS is displayed wand DPS/2. It seems if you were perfectly timing your shoots, it would be somewhat better than that as wand speeds tend to be about 1.5, so wouldn't it be:

(min + max)/(2 * (wand speed + 1.0))

which is better than displayed/2 as wand speeds are always more than 1.0 seconds. The slower the wand, the less a percentage effect upon overall real wand DPS.

I have not, like you, done any extensive testing of wands under the current mechanics so I'm probably missing a factor. The above is pure theory so is probably no good :P

Under 1.5 it would be:

(min + max)/(2 * wand speed)

[Concillian]

I'm not sure I understand how you get wand DPS is displayed wand DPS/2.  It seems if you were perfectly timing your shoots, it would be somewhat better than that as wand speeds tend to be about 1.5, so wouldn't it be:

(min + max)/(2 * (wand speed + 1.0))
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Wands (and other ranged weapons) would attack at a speed of speed *2. They induced the global cooldown, but the cooldown on the ranged weapon was actually not equal to 1.0 seconds, but the speed of the weapon.

This is how if I used a dagger of speed < wand speed it would ALWAYS attack (automatically) during the cooldown of the wand. If the cooldown of the wand were 1.0 seconds, there would not be enough time for a dagger to attack during the cooldown.

I verified this by using a dagger of 0.1 seconds shorter than wand time and one of 0.1 seconds longer than wand time. The result was that the short speed dagger ALWAYS attacked in the cooldown time, and the longer speed dagger NEVER attacked during the cooldown time.

I'm not sure how the misconception that wand coodown = 1.0 seconds got started, but in the current version (not the version on the test realm) it's definitely not 1.0 seconds. It's even clearer when you use a warrior or roguw and shoot a bow/gun/crossbow with something like a 2.6 second cooldown. You have the global cooldown of 1.0 seconds, but the bow/gun/crossbow is less than halfway through it's own cooldown by the time you can use your other skills. Wands in that version seem to work exactly the same as other ranged weapons.

So all ranged weapons have an actual DPS of displayed DPS / 2. I do not know if they worked differently with hunters (as they have autoshoot), as I never played a hunter. Perhaps autoshoot somehow eliminates a significant portion of the time that other classes have to wait when using a ranged weapon.

No matter what though SOMETHING was bugged, either the displayed DPS, autoshoot, or shoot in general. Maybe this fix still leaves other ranged weapon users (warriors and rogues) with a bug of some sort, as they do not get the listed base DPS on their ranged weapons, it's half that.

[Rinnhart]

For damage, you can resist the shots. Get a little resist gear, and wands are useless. I realize this means having specific armor for the situation, but many people say the same thing when people complain about Rogues or Shadow Preists: "Get a few items and you'll do better."

Secondary gear only applies if you're the aggressor.

[Raelynn]

So, against an evenly matched druid or priest, if the RNG is rolling evenly, we'll both hit oom with a 1/4 or so of our hitpoints left (that's referencing a dozen duels and attempted ganks). Now, assuming they don't regen enough mana for a heal or nuke (what usually happens to end the fight), I have a shot at winning. Add in a wand doing 60dps nature damage (stormrager) at the end there when all they have is a staff or dagger normally. Add 60dps all that shiny armor does jack to protect against, and I will lose every fight, because oom, I do 90dps. 90. And they still get to mitigate some of that.
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Priests armor might get slightly higher, but the average I've seen for cloth casters with buffs is about 20% damage reduction. That would change 90 DPS to about 72 DPS. This is still higher than the 60DPS for the wand. Apparently the max for priests is about 30% requiring a deep discipline talent and a 3 minute spell (which may run out depending on the encounter), so that would bring you paladin down to 63 DPS, still slightly higher. Granted there is the range problem, but priests don't have a snare that doesn't require them to stand still and wands require them to stand still, so it's not as big a deal in this situation.

It's somewhat close, but wand dps doesn't seem like it'll ever trump melee dps at all. Cloth wearers just don't have enough means to mitigate the damage from the melee weapons and those will increase in damage most likely much faster than wand and spell damage (but that's for another discussion).

[MongoJerry]

I want wands balanced so I don't die to a priest that chain heals himself and wands for damage.

What frightens me is that you might actually be serious about this statement. Even with the auto-shoot buff, wands will still never compare to actual spells and skills that people have. If a priest is using wands on you, that means he or she is out of mana and is a sitting duck. And anyway, if the priest is "chain healing" him or herself, that means that they're having to stutter their wand casts and end up losing all of the new added dps. Auto-shoot is only effective if you're firing a series of shots.

[Rinnhart]

What frightens me is that you might actually be serious about this statement.&nbsp; Even with the auto-shoot buff, wands will still never compare to actual spells and skills that people have.&nbsp; If a priest is using wands on you, that means he or she is out of mana and is a sitting duck.&nbsp; And anyway, if the priest is "chain healing" him or herself, that means that they're having to stutter their wand casts and end up losing all of the new added dps.&nbsp; Auto-shoot is only effective if you're firing a series of shots.
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Exaggeration for effect.

[Rinnhart]

Priests armor might get slightly higher, but the average I've seen for cloth casters with buffs is about 20% damage reduction.&nbsp; That would change 90 DPS to about 72 DPS.&nbsp; This is still higher than the 60DPS for the wand.&nbsp; Apparently the max for priests is about 30% requiring a deep discipline talent and a 3 minute spell (which may run out depending on the encounter), so that would bring you paladin down to 63 DPS, still slightly higher.&nbsp; Granted there is the range problem, but priests don't have a snare that doesn't require them to stand still and wands require them to stand still, so it's not as big a deal in this situation.

It's somewhat close, but wand dps doesn't seem like it'll ever trump melee dps at all.&nbsp; Cloth wearers just don't have enough means to mitigate the damage from the melee weapons and those will increase in damage most likely much faster than wand and spell damage (but that's for another discussion).
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Here's a question: why do casters need wands in the first place? Making a secondary, wholely elemental damage source for the classes that already do 99% elemental damage seems counterproductive given the existing talent and skill focus on physical defense.

[Raelynn]

Here's a question: why do casters need wands in the first place? Making a secondary, wholely elemental damage source for the classes that already do 99% elemental damage seems counterproductive given the existing talent and skill focus on physical defense.
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Which physical defense increases are there? As far as I know the only talents that increase physical defense are the priest one that increases the effectiveness of their armor spell and the warlock 31 point demonology talent that share damage with the pet (which at this point can be easily dispelled). There are no skills beyond the armor spells which just bring cloth casters up to the point of not dying from a strong breeze.

I still don't see the validity of your complaint. Wands never outdamaged other ranged weapons and moreso their damage can only be increased by talents on only 2 classes. The skill is insanely hard to get up so resists are extremely common. When it comes down to it, wands are a last ditch attack that won't significantly change the outcome of a battle. Even in your scenario, the melee weapon was a higher dps. This was also with the best wand currently in the game (I don't know how your weapon stacks up, but I'm assuming that isn't the best in the game).

Basically, casters need a way to damage heavily armored opponents since they can't survive the hits. When mana runs out they still need this in some way or else in that situation they would never win.

[MongoJerry]

I'm a paladin... No chance.

Something in this game should be able to kill you. Welcome to the world of other character classes.

Here's a question: why do casters need wands in the first place? Making a secondary, wholely elemental damage source for the classes that already do 99% elemental damage seems counterproductive given the existing talent and skill focus on physical defense.

Because by nature casters are ranged attackers with elemental attacks, and all characters have the ability to still deal damage at a reduced rate even if they are out of mana, rage, or energy. It seems fair to let casters do this as well.

[Sinnu]

The only direct test I have seen of Hunter AutoShot vs The New and Improved Wand is:

Hunter using ONLY AutoShot. NO OTHER SKILLS

Mage using ONLY Wand. NO OTHER SKILLS

shooting at a lvl 55 warrior in defensive stance. Damage mittigation in the 50-60% range.

The Wand was the highest damage wand in the game. The gun was (I think) DHC.

The New and Improved Wand won. Easily.

Thus, I think the best that can be said, when both the hunter and wand-user are out of mana completely and are firing at a high armor opponet with no resists against the wand, the wand will outdamage the hunter autoshot.

Once mana, resists, or lower armor enter the equation, it is a different ball game altogther. But it does appear that a mana-less wand-er and a manaless hunter are now somewhat competitive in damage dealt to high defense targets.

[Alarick]

The only direct test I have seen of Hunter AutoShot vs The New and Improved Wand is:

Hunter using ONLY AutoShot.&nbsp; NO OTHER SKILLS

Mage using ONLY Wand.&nbsp; NO OTHER SKILLS

shooting at a lvl 55 warrior in defensive stance.&nbsp; Damage mittigation in the 50-60% range.

The Wand was the highest damage wand in the game.&nbsp; The gun was (I think) DHC.&nbsp;

The New and Improved Wand won.&nbsp; Easily.

Thus, I think the best that can be said, when both the hunter and wand-user are out of mana completely and are firing at a high armor opponet with no resists against the wand, the wand will outdamage the hunter autoshot.&nbsp;

Once mana, resists, or lower armor enter the equation, it is a different ball game altogther.&nbsp; But it does appear that a mana-less wand-er and a manaless hunter are now somewhat competitive in damage dealt to high defense targets.
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The only issue I see with this test is it is one where wands are supposed to be better even under the old system. Guns (or bows) versus an armor target are normall going to be worse than wands without taking resists into account.

However, if you take the other end of the spectrum and have the target be a mage decked out in the appropriate resistance gear, I'll bet the gun will far out-damage the wand.

You can't take the extreme of 50-60% damage mitigation and say that the non-physical damage of wands is surprisingly beating the the physical damage of guns because this is what's supposed to happen against high armor enemies.

I still think that, in the long run, the auto-shoot for wands will not significantly affect PvP. It may have an affect on some encounters in PvE (like OOM mages fighting Onxyia), but I stand my my opinion that PvP will not change significantly.

[Sinnu]

I still think that, in the long run, the auto-shoot for wands will not significantly affect PvP.&nbsp; It may have an affect on some encounters in PvE (like OOM mages fighting Onxyia), but I stand my my opinion that PvP will not change significantly.
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I agree completely. Hunters in PvP tend to target squishies anyway. This makes wanders a little stronger in PvP (due to the timer fix)... but I was under the impression that a OOM caster was a dead caster anyway.

And this was a horrible test. If you could stack a test more against the hunter, I'd love to hear how. That mages out-damage (insert physical damage class here) against high armor mobs is not exactly groundbreaking news. Now they just do without mana as well.

I'd like to see some more and better testing of this. Particularly against end-game raid level monsters. I doubt this has an impact on caster DPS over the long haul... except for maybe holy priests? But I would like to see some comparisons.

[Alarick]

I agree completely.&nbsp; Hunters in PvP tend to target squishies anyway.&nbsp; This makes wanders a little stronger in PvP (due to the timer fix)... but I was under the impression that a OOM caster was a dead caster anyway.

And this was a horrible test.&nbsp; If you could stack a test more against the hunter, I'd love to hear how.&nbsp; That mages out-damage (insert physical damage class here) against high armor mobs is not exactly groundbreaking news.&nbsp; Now they just do without mana as well.

I'd like to see some more and better testing of this.&nbsp; Particularly against end-game raid level&nbsp; monsters.&nbsp; I doubt this has an impact on caster DPS over the long haul... except for maybe holy priests?&nbsp; But I would like to see some comparisons.
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Really, an OOM caster is probably dead in either case. The change to wand mechanics may even make it harder for casters trying to save mana to survive because they can't cast while un auto-shoot. The suto-shoot needs to be turned off via movement, hitting ESC, or using an item, then the cooldown goes through, then a spell can be cast.

Compared to the old method, it'll take some getting used to, and may actually slow down a caster slightly in the long run.

For raid battles, I think that this shouldn't change the DPS of most casters significantly. I expect, as people have said, that this will more bring caster DPS up to expected levels for some of the longer fights. In the shorter fights, well they really won't be using the wand all too much there.

It's important to keep note that this is bringing the DPS of wands up to the level stated on the wands. There are other posts in this thread detailing through testing how pre patch wands actually do half the listed DPS, which is a huge problem with wands to begin with.

[Rinnhart]

Which physical defense increases are there?&nbsp; As far as I know the only talents that increase physical defense are the priest one that increases the effectiveness of their armor spell and the warlock 31 point demonology talent that share damage with the pet (which at this point can be easily dispelled).&nbsp; There are no skills beyond the armor spells which just bring cloth casters up to the point of not dying from a strong breeze.

Any dodge, parry, block increase is a bonus against physical attacks.

I still don't see the validity of your complaint.

Meh, I'm bored.

Wands never outdamaged other ranged weapons and moreso their damage can only be increased by talents on only 2 classes.&nbsp; The skill is insanely hard to get up so resists are extremely common.

The skill is difficult to level up? Pardon, but leveling any skill is easy enough to do.

When it comes down to it, wands are a last ditch attack that won't significantly change the outcome of a battle.&nbsp; Even in your scenario, the melee weapon was a higher dps.&nbsp; This was also with the best wand currently in the game (I don't know how your weapon stacks up, but I'm assuming that isn't the best in the game).

That is not the best wand in the game- that's a common quested wand that any self-respecting level 60 caster has.

Basically, casters need a way to damage heavily armored opponents since they can't survive the hits.&nbsp; When mana runs out they still need this in some way or else in that situation they would never win.

Casters have the ranged damage advantage against armored characters by a massive margine, already. Do they need a mana-free attack that still maintains a reasonable advantage?

[Rinnhart]

Something in this game should be able to kill you.&nbsp; Welcome to the world of other character classes.

I'd rather have the player play well and properly ruin my #$%& than lose fights to people just because they're casters.

I'm sure cloth wearers just love being one-hit killed by rogues.

In brief: Liar, liar, pants on fire.

Because by nature casters are ranged attackers with elemental attacks, and all characters have the ability to still deal damage at a reduced rate even if they are out of mana, rage, or energy.&nbsp; It seems fair to let casters do this as well.
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You already do! What do you think that staff's for; channeling primal energy into unstoppable waves of fire and ice? No! Swing! Swing for all that you hold dear!