Wands Uber on Test Server

[Raelynn]

One of many posts about it is here.

I found the change to wands as auto-shot very surprising.  This was something that was asked for all beta long and I could SWEAR Blizzard said that there was no way they were going to do it.

What's held wands in check for so long is that:

1) You have to manually fire them each time.
2) They have a "global cooldown" - when you fire a wand you can't use ANY other offensive spell for a whole second.

Take that away, and the whole dynamic is changed for casters.  I noted for a long time that my wand DPS typically beat my melee DPS on my Priest, even with Inner Fire.  However, sometimes I didn't feel like standing there and clicking for each shot, so I'd do the "lazy man's" offense and turn on Attack to let her beat something down in the slow, slow way that holy Priests do.  There's no way I'd bother with that anymore.  Wand autoshot would make her uber!

I don't know about that poster's fantastical claim that wand DPS outshines Hunter DPS now (I'd have to see that to believe it), but I'd bet that wand damage needs a good nerf if they slap autoshot on it as they currently have on the test server.  Every Priest out there has got to be salivating over this - Priests use wands more than anybody when in groups, as it lets them do moderate damage from a safe distance while not sacrificing precious healing mana.

It will also make the +wand damage talents that some classes have more useful.  But HOW useful?

-Bolty
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One of the big problems with wands was there was the wand casting time and then the universal cool down which not only applied to spells, but also to the wand itself. The wand dps on the tooltip only took the casting time of the wand into account, so in all actuality wand dps was significantly lower than what was written.

The big differences this toggle has compared to auto-shoot are 1) it's harder for a caster to get his skill up compared to hunters and 2) spells turn it off compared to hunter skills which just keeps going afterwards.

Right now it is majorly bugged in that the only way to stop it is to move. The toggle button won't toggle it off and the cooldown is still there so whenever you try to cast a spell you're either casting with the wand or you are in the cooldown for the wand so it always gives the "not ready" message. That has been noted as a known bug and it will be fixed. I personally don't see this as making that much of a difference in the game. It just seems to put wands closer to their actual listed dps.