Wander problems

HIGHLY SUGGEST WATCHING THE VIDEO

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRDh6ePmrc4]
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NOTE

Lowlife CoE is just an amplification towards my damage. Damage to spell is converted to damage to attacks which encompasses both physical AND elemental components. Because I'm running a hybrid build, the validity (with explanation) from testing the nodes are valid for other builds. This is because when not CoE/Lowlife = Less damage for both before and after as shown in the video.

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A relatively short summary.

Wanding since release has taken many turns for good and worse, where the 1.0.0 and 1.1.0 Passive tree revealed possible build paths for elemental, physical and hybrid builds.

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Wands as a weapon and critical scaling
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Wands have the highest base Crit chance, lowest base dps and yet don't have a single Crit node other than bullying (not really a crit node because you need crit for it to even work in the first place). Ironically, every other weapon has crit nodes. WTF? Heck, the only wand specific skill generates power charges on kill!

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Wand nodes and their limitations
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Wand nodes are extremely limited, inefficient and thwarted. Because Crit is so perfect with the crit base, crit nodes out shine wander nodes by a long shot. Fussilade is the only option of ele wanders, elder wand the only for physical. Everything else is shit/inefficient/bad. Funny that i don't even take Fussilade on my elemental wander guide here

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Wand sustainability without high tier gear
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Wands have such heavy mana costs that it's unrealistic for mana sustain for new characters. Why can imbued wands never fire 0 blanks unless you deliberately minimise all attack speed possible? Takes serious gear and passive point allotment to be able to have a reliable and continuous attack. Stack the Attack speed will result in less dps, because you're only firing blanks.

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Conclusion
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I feel that what i talk about is probably something that needs to be addressed, for why should I, with basically BiS gear achieve a better wander build, by ignoring wander nodes.

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Links to the builds
Hybrid Wander
Elemental Wander - Piscator's
Burning Wander - Piscator's

Wish GGG had such meticulous person like you on their balancing team.

Just for reference what's your crit chance?

That was very informative though. Should send those notes to GGG.

I mean, you vaporize everything already (not that CoS counts, but builds like yours are known to vaporize everything). I'm not sure how you could ask for what effectively means a buff in every way to wanders while playing a build that's already insane. I mean, c'mon.

Now, I could get onboard with the idea of changing wand nodes up a bit in some way. But not in a way that turns into an outright buff to wanders across the board. They really don't need it. IMO they're only second to daggers in potential after all things are considered.

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kasub wrote:

Just for reference what's your crit chance?

That was very informative though. Should send those notes to GGG.

95% throughout all.

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JahIthBer89 wrote:

I mean, you vaporize everything already (not that CoS counts, but builds like yours are known to vaporize everything). I'm not sure how you could ask for what effectively means a buff in every way to wanders while playing a build that's already insane. I mean, c'mon.

Now, I could get onboard with the idea of changing wand nodes up a bit in some way. But not in a way that turns into an outright buff to wanders across the board. They really don't need it. IMO they're only second to daggers in potential after all things are considered.

IMO, wanders do need some love. Just because i have my gear, doesn't necessarily mean others have gear like that either. I'll be honest, there aren't many people who will acquire gear that much better than mine and pump out more dps. I know i'm not the prime example to showcase, but I do have a lot of experience and knowledge towards wanding.

I guess GGG's point of view is something like "hell, they can manage with current state of wand nodes so why bother balancing?"
I always saw wanders as something I will do "that day" when I have no idea where to sink my currency into. (yea, you can make "budget" hp ele wander, I know) I think however that with the current state of meta where low life spectral throw basically kicked wanders out of their place it would be nice to see some love for wands.

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Skyforth wrote:

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JahIthBer89 wrote:

I mean, you vaporize everything already (not that CoS counts, but builds like yours are known to vaporize everything). I'm not sure how you could ask for what effectively means a buff in every way to wanders while playing a build that's already insane. I mean, c'mon.

Now, I could get onboard with the idea of changing wand nodes up a bit in some way. But not in a way that turns into an outright buff to wanders across the board. They really don't need it. IMO they're only second to daggers in potential after all things are considered.

IMO, wanders do need some love. Just because i have my gear, doesn't necessarily mean others have gear like that either. I'll be honest, there aren't many people who will acquire gear that much better than mine and pump out more dps. I know i'm not the prime example to showcase, but I do have a lot of experience and knowledge towards wanding.

I totally get what you're trying to say, that you don't think wanders should be exclusive to people with god-tier gear. But I just think your suggestion of fixing it by making wand nodes more efficient is really misguided.

If they were to tidy up wand nodes and make them anywhere near as good as dagger nodes we would have budget wanders being viable, sure. But builds like yours would also become dragon ball Z levels of ridiculous. I'm with mara here on dagger nodes though. They should not be par for the course when you make comparisons between weapon types. They're wayyyy over the top compared to everything else.

I still have a classic EB ele wander from OB-era, using what used to be the best ele wand possible:


So I do have a little experience with wanders (though admittedly, this build is super outdated since the aura change at release totally butchered my defenses). I just don't think high-end wanders need any help, and making wand nodes comparable to dagger nodes would just make them unreal IMO.


I will say though, the north side of the tree is wayy outdated and needs some tuning up in general. Same for the area between shadow and ranger. What a clusterf***. That's not specific to wanders at all though.

you picked a scion to make a wander enough said

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JahIthBer89 wrote:

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Skyforth wrote:

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JahIthBer89 wrote:

I mean, you vaporize everything already (not that CoS counts, but builds like yours are known to vaporize everything). I'm not sure how you could ask for what effectively means a buff in every way to wanders while playing a build that's already insane. I mean, c'mon.

Now, I could get onboard with the idea of changing wand nodes up a bit in some way. But not in a way that turns into an outright buff to wanders across the board. They really don't need it. IMO they're only second to daggers in potential after all things are considered.

IMO, wanders do need some love. Just because i have my gear, doesn't necessarily mean others have gear like that either. I'll be honest, there aren't many people who will acquire gear that much better than mine and pump out more dps. I know i'm not the prime example to showcase, but I do have a lot of experience and knowledge towards wanding.

I totally get what you're trying to say, that you don't think wanders should be exclusive to people with god-tier gear. But I just think your suggestion of fixing it by making wand nodes more efficient is really misguided.

If they were to tidy up wand nodes and make them anywhere near as good as dagger nodes we would have budget wanders being viable, sure. But builds like yours would also become dragon ball Z levels of ridiculous. I'm with mara here on dagger nodes though. They should not be par for the course when you make comparisons between weapon types. They're wayyyy over the top compared to everything else.

I still have a classic EB ele wander from OB-era, using what used to be the best ele wand possible:

So I do have a little experience with wanders (though admittedly, this build is super outdated since the aura change at release totally butchered my defenses). I just don't think high-end wanders need any help, and making wand nodes comparable to dagger nodes would just make them unreal IMO.


I will say though, the north side of the tree is wayy outdated and needs some tuning up in general. Same for the area between shadow and ranger. What a clusterf***. That's not specific to wanders at all though.

I only realised what I explained in the video after creating the piscator's ele wander (/955559) when I saw the trend. This extended onto the burning wander which took fire damage nodes rather than wand nodes itself. I felt it was extremely counter intuitive and that led to the creation of this video.

My wander showcased in the ele wander guide is not god gear, but better than average. I have tested and poked around on all builds with the point efficiency and effectiveness before coming to the conclusion that wand nodes... Suck.