Wands Uber on Test Server

[Bolty]

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

[vor_lord]

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.

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Just tried this out with my priest. Wand DPS is really is much higher (no reliable way to measure but it is easy to tell that I shoot much more often--I feel like a machine gunner). The post above estimated the DPS increase as 30-40% and that feels conservative to me if anything. No need to worry about dagger timing now. Wand specialization looks to be worth the points. This is a major change as I can do decent damage with mobs in my face without PW:S.

I can't think this is here to stay.

[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.

[Pesmerga]

That and hunters have talents to make their weapon more effiecient, plus nice stat bonuses, etc. I do (via whatever DPS measurer i have) 200 dps in most raids. I truly doubt that a priest doing autoshot with their wand will be able to match that consistantly

[Brista]

Hunter dps is supposed to include the pet, which probably wasn't factored in

Also it depends a lot on weapons and is boosted by gear. It's not remarkable that a character with a good wand out-damages a hunter with a bad bow. Do wands get any form of attack power bonus? Or bonus chance to crit based on some stat? And I'm sure they don't get a damage boost from ammo

If it means that our pickup healers won't feel they have to spam mind flay until the crisis hits then be caught oom I'm all for it ;)

[vor_lord]

That and hunters have talents to make their weapon more effiecient, plus nice stat bonuses, etc.  I do (via whatever DPS measurer i have) 200 dps in most raids.  I truly doubt that a priest doing autoshot with their wand will be able to match that consistantly
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Agreed, but I doubt you are just using autoshot with no buffs and getting 200 DPS (which is what the comparison in the thread was about). If you are I will start crying now.

I, for one, welcome our new uber wand damage overlords :shuriken: Seriously, this won't replace main damage dealt even for holy priests. But it is a signficant buff, particularly for the priest (and even more so for the holy or disc priest).

I guess having played a paladin so long I'm not sure what to make of the "I got buffed" feeling other than to insist it can't be real :P

[Pesmerga]

Agreed, but I doubt you are just using autoshot with no buffs and getting 200 DPS (which is what the comparison in the thread was about).  If you are I will start crying now.

True, I do typically have Aspect of the Hawk and Trueshot Aura on. That and I own. :)

Even so, we're still one of the best DPS damage dealers out there.

[Xanthix]

Holy Cow! Is the Wand Specialization talent no longer useless? It's +25% damage, maybe that's not too bad now!

[Raelynn]

I, for one, welcome our new uber wand damage overlords :shuriken: 
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Yay Fark!

[Alarick]

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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I have to say this isn't a buff for wands DPS more than it's fixing some major issues that have plagued wands use since being adding to the game.

The DPS listed for wands pre patch is far far too high. As stated before, it doesn't take into account that cooldowns are both before and after shooting, meaning that the true DPS of a 70 DPS wands typically falls around 35-40 DPS on average.

This cooldown bug wasn't even known by the devs apparantly, or else the CMs were never told, since Fangtooth didn't understand what was going on when responding to thread about it.

Should wands be auto-shoot. It's nice, but I dont' tihnk think it's 100% necessary. I would've been happy had they fixed the cooldown issues. Not being able to cast a spell within one second of using a wands is a huge issue. Just as bad, not being able to use wands during the cooldown of spells. It all needed to be fixed ages ago, and this auto-shoot wands thing my finally fix them.

As for is it too powerful? I don't think so. The wand DPS is stagnant. As far as I can tell, little to nothing affects wand damage. It's not spell damage, so +damage items don't help. I haven' seen any real affect from +ranged attack either. I really think it'll just be helpful in soloing for wand users to be able to get the true DPS out of wands, rather than the half-DPS because of the cooldown issues.

[Rinnhart]

Because casters needed a DPS increase!

[Alarick]

An official note on the Test Realm forums pointed out the extreme limitation of the new Auto-shoot wand functionality.

You cannot cancel the wand toggle by casting spells. The only way to cancel it is moving, hitting escape, or hitting the wand toggle button again. currently, both the escape button and the wand toggle button are bugged and don't work. The CM on the forums didn't mention anything about the toggle button not working.

This is a huge limitation to the new functionailty. It means that the cooldown still exists after the last shot, and you have to manually cancel the shooting in order to do anything. The added DPS will suffer because of this.

With this change, I think Hunters can safely stop complaining about this feature. It's not as big a deal as they are making it out to be.

[Rinnhart]

The added DPS will suffer because of this.
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Sure.

[Quark]

Sure.
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Would you rather have Wands balanced from a pure numbers side, or from a mechanics side?

If a caster wanted non-spell damage before, Auto-attack was much more convenient. I've seen 60 Priests using their daggers to add a little DPS, I've only seen bored 60 Priests use wands.

If this does make Wands too strong, should Blizzard get rid of it? No. They should lower Wand damage then.

[Alarick]

I have checked myself, and wands themselves suffer from a particular design decision that means they will never be as good as Hunters with autoshoot.

You cannot change a wand's DPS without talents.

It is not possible. I don't care what people say, I've checked myself with mutliple buffs, and ranged attack power does not affect wand damage. There is nothing to change the wand damage, so a 50 DPS wand is and will always be a 50DPS wand, unless talents are invested.

Think what you will, but I don't think this change of functionality will make that large a difference in the game. Hunters can cry all they want, but it isn't going to change the fact that Hunters still have better ranged DPS.

Honestly, I never expected this to actually happen, but I still stand by the statement that this isn't buffing wand DPS as much as it's finally bringing wand DPS to the level listed on the wands.

[Rinnhart]

Would you rather have Wands balanced from a pure numbers side, or from a mechanics side?

If a caster wanted non-spell damage before, Auto-attack was much more convenient.  I've seen 60 Priests using their daggers to add a little DPS, I've only seen bored 60 Priests use wands.

If this does make Wands too strong, should Blizzard get rid of it?  No.  They should lower Wand damage then.
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I want wands balanced so I don't die to a priest that chain heals himself and wands for damage.

[lfd]

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 want not to have to think about how to approach every situation. I want to be able to autopilot myself through each encounter and not have to worry about meeting someone who comes up with a different way of doing things".

;-)

I suspect strongly that that is not what you mean, but it did come accross a little whiny. As with any healing class, surely you just either stop them healing, or damage them so much that they spend all their time healing until they run out of mana?

I'd see this more as a problem that other people have to find a solution to, rather than an exploit to be fixed.

[Brista]

I want wands balanced so I don't die to a priest that chain heals himself and wands for damage.
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OK, wanding, self-healing priest: terrible damage, high survivability, terrible manoeuvrability

How can you possibly die? It's hard to get kills in pvp sometimes even with high damage, high manoeuvrability characters against intelligent players trying to escape

Someone doing at best 71 * 1.25 dps with the end-game purple wand and Wand Mastery is no threat to anyone who simply moves away. Even if they chase you they can't shoot on the run.

I think it's more likely to be a desperate move in pvp, when a priest might have just enough for a last heal or two and is trying to manipulate the 5 second rule while still maintaining damage output. Even then it only works against someone who thinks they can win because you can't chase someone and wand them

It is possible that against another terrible damage opponent a priest may be effectively indestructible with good use of the 5 second rule and heals but the changes to wand mastery don't effect this. If they can stand there and laugh at you while they heal now they can still do it once this goes live. I doubt that priests are this strong against any even-levelled oppponents but if they are then all this change might mean is you no longer should stand there being shot if the fight is unwinnable but surely you weren't doing that anyway :)

[Drasca]

I want wands balanced so I don't die to a priest that chain heals himself and wands for damage.
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Then actually pvp instead of simple-minded attack attack attack. Wands aren't enough damage, and they'll chain heal now.

Let's see... drain shot, scatter shot, wing clip, freeze trap, rapid shot. You can do all of that to interrupt and deny spellcasting.

Granted, shadow priests can be rough, but they're rough for anyone except anti-caster builds.

[Alarick]

I want wands balanced so I don't die to a priest that chain heals himself and wands for damage.
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With the exact mechanics of the new system, a preist can't do this without as much micromanagement as it would have before. There's still the cooldown after casting a spell before wand shooting can start. There's still a cooldown after using a wand before casting can start.

A priest can't simply cast a heal in the middle of auto-shooting. It's not designed that way. They have to cancel the auto-shoot, wait for the one second cooldown, then cast the spell. If they want to continue shooting afterwards, they have to wait for the appropriate cooldown, then start the auto shoot.

I don't think it will be any more possible for a priest to chain heal himself and kill a person only with wands than it was before.