Wands Uber on Test Server

[Alarick]

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.
[right][snapback]77570[/snapback][/right]

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.