Utility of Wands (and scrolls/activated items)

[nickvannuchi]

I want to know the general experience of players with wands, and the general utility u find on them.

The best wand user its obviously a pure lv20 artificer.

Trying to use every wands available and many activated itens prior to lv 20 capstone and after, i just found utility in Searing Light and Ligthning wands. They both do decent dmg in R1 if u are an arcane caster type, they are an option to certain enemies and conserve your spell points.

Post lv 20, when u get Artificer capstone, it was a surprise to me that Phantamal Killer Wands are uber effective for leveling. U can buy them at twelve and they kill absolutely anything up to lv 28 (not sure how SR and DC is calculated, but i belive my spell pen from past lives helps) with a CD much shorter than the actual spell. Using no SP! Low lv epics like Sentinels chain and VON are very easy using those wands.

Epic and Legendary wands on the other side are not useful except for Cacophonic verge, which can stun enemies in the area, and dmg can proc epic mantles. (Using primal this is actually effective because sonic dmg has a separate cd timer). Wand maximize its not enough to do decent dmg with brimstone verge and winter wrath.

Overall I wish that more wands become available like prismatic spray, finger of death and hold monster. Lv9 spells could be available from chests.

For all items that cast spells, I did not find any utility at all in R1 leveling, besides some summons like Shard of Xoriat and Wolf Whistle.

 

[Fisto Mk I]

All version Darkstorm Helm very useful too. Equip Leg Affirmation item, use Storm clickies, have Leg Affirmation work (48 sec for heroic, 90 for Epic/Leg ), equip actual weapon and helm... 8)

 

[Zuldar]

We need an new epic feat, Epic Scroll and Wand Mastery: Your scrolls and wands are affected by any metamagics you have. Kind of like how macrotechnic can do that for rune arms. Make it require 12 levels in a primary casting class. I'd also like to see more random gen Staves and Rods that function like wands but with higher level spells.

 

[Fizban]

Nice topic, I think this idea has potential.

 

[Kritikal]

Every character I have that cannot cast Shield, heads over to the guild Wand Vendor and buys 4 to have on have at all times. Maybe My Bard will use a Cure Critical Wounds wand if she has one available.

This is about the extent of Wand use I do.

As for Scrolls, I'll use Raise Dead, Restoration, Teleport. Basically, nothing too combat oriented. I started carrying Dispel Magic for the T-Rex quest in IOD.

My favorite clickable items are the Eternal Flask of Death Ward, and my stoneskin Greensteel clicky.

I would love for there to be better ways to improve wands.

 

[Justfungus]

I was never a big fan of how D&D in general deals with wands.
Not even counting DDO, because they are just doing like D&D dictates so I don't really blame them.
I think wands should be a weapon "mages use" not a disposable spell canon.
It should allow (a trained spell caster) to make a reasonable ranged attack but should also offer
other non-specific benefits (mana boost, discount on the casting cost of a certain school of spells and or so on)
But that is me, and not official D&D

 

[Fizban]

I think a proper way to do this but still keep a casters direct spells as a more powerful option would be to use the 75% rule currently in many of the AP options.

 

[Dunspartacus]

I also wish wand/scroll mastery increased the duration of buffs like shield/resist energy by some amount. The amount of times I've forgotten to re-up shield wand and get demolished by a soul of cruelty magic missile is.....actually not that much but it's happened.

 

[droid327]

Wands are simply never going to be competitive because of the low opportunity cost required. They'd need to introduce a whole wand-focused tree or a slate of wand feats, maybe a wand armor set, in order to create a trade off to justify them being better

Anything a wand can do in combat now, you can do better with an sla or just a ranged weapon with similar investment

 

[Waveman]

Wand of Knock is kinda handy for those without the spell.

 

[FaustianBargain]

Wands are very useful situationally. For instance Fireball for setting tents on fire in Blockade Buster, lighting torches in Inferno of the Damned, or breaking down some strength check doors. (Or Cone of Cold for putting the Inferno lights out, make up your mind already.)
Shield was mentioned above, important when casters spam magic missiles. (Although clickies are reasonably available)
Knock and Detect Secret Doors are great at low levels.
Soundburst for hard to target or access breakables if you’re so inclined.
The occasional lootgen higher level resist energy wand can be handy if you can’t otherwise get a 30 point resist cast.
Cure wands are a great way for low level paladins and rangers who don’t have cure spells yet but qualify for wand use to top off health of themselves and others.
Blur is great for adding a bit survivability, ice storm is nice for slowing down enemies with no save.
So there’s a ton of utility to be found in some.

It’s once you get to damage dealing that they’re lackluster, largely due to low DCs when a save is involved or non scaling damage from a fixed caster level and no spellpower applied. The low caster level and limited selection of spells on wands is another huge deterrent. Ultimately wands do 2006 effects against 2023 monsters. Figuring out some way to improve things would be nice, but doesn’t top my list.

 

[LunaCee]

A gigantic chunk of why wands are garbage at damage is that wand and scroll power is the only scalar they have. Healing wands and heal scrolls benefit from both that and healing amplification at the same time. Now if they gave us a feat that would at least let us use our elemental spell power stats for stuff cast from consumables and clickies? Then we'd be getting somewhere against the stat bloat HP that late game mobs have.

Epic Winter's Wrath is currently a joke at being anything but a glaciation and ice lore item... especially since Wand Maximizing does not stack with wand and scroll mastery. Let us actually use our total glaciation stat and things would get more interesting. Unfortunately you'd still be at the mercy of bad DCs overall. But at least it might do more than only tickle.

 

[Amorais]

Big issue with wands is they don't stack or have a container type. I've said this idea before but would be cool if you can combine wands with the same name but less than 50 charges into one wand with the sum charges of both wands at the item change thingy in the marketplace, with a few dragonshards or something.

 

[droid327]

A gigantic chunk of why wands are garbage at damage is that wand and scroll power is the only scalar they have. Healing wands and heal scrolls benefit from both that and healing amplification at the same time. Now if they gave us a feat that would at least let us use our elemental spell power stats for stuff cast from consumables and clickies? Then we'd be getting somewhere against the stat bloat HP that late game mobs have.

Epic Winter's Wrath is currently a joke at being anything but a glaciation and ice lore item... especially since Wand Maximizing does not stack with wand and scroll mastery. Let us actually use our total glaciation stat and things would get more interesting. Unfortunately you'd still be at the mercy of bad DCs overall. But at least it might do more than only tickle.

The problem there is that it would make healing scrolls/wands way too strong for the opportunity cost - every class could splash a little UMD and get decent and free self-healing. You could argue that that's moot at this point, with only a few classes now lacking self-heals, though.

I think letting you use 100% of your spellpower/lore with wands would be equally problematic - it essentially lets you have every spell available all the time for free. That circumvents the limitations on caster slots, especially Sorcs and FvS where they arent supposed to have the flexibility of prepared casters. And it wouldnt be too tough for a non-caster class to slap on a power/lore ring and be able to sling Fireballs etc. nearly as well as a caster. I think WSM should just be changed to use 25/50/75% of your relevant spellpower...that would make wands middlingly decent, but not a full alternative to actual spells and SLAs, and not enough to turn anyone into a pocket sorc.

 

[LunaCee]

And it wouldnt be too tough for a non-caster class to slap on a power/lore ring and be able to sling Fireballs etc. nearly as well as a caster.

There is a reason I specifically specified only elemental spell power and none of the light/alignment/positive/negative stuff. And additionally it doesn't make up for the innately low DCs you get stuck with from wand and clicky casts. Sure you can stack on three wizard past lives for another +6 to saving throw DCs, but that isn't going to make a difference in epic really.

 

[Col Kurtz]

The problem there is that it would make healing scrolls/wands way too strong for the opportunity cost - every class could splash a little UMD and get decent and free self-healing. You could argue that that's moot at this point, with only a few classes now lacking self-heals, though.

I think letting you use 100% of your spellpower/lore with wands would be equally problematic - it essentially lets you have every spell available all the time for free. That circumvents the limitations on caster slots, especially Sorcs and FvS where they arent supposed to have the flexibility of prepared casters. And it wouldnt be too tough for a non-caster class to slap on a power/lore ring and be able to sling Fireballs etc. nearly as well as a caster. I think WSM should just be changed to use 25/50/75% of your relevant spellpower...that would make wands middlingly decent, but not a full alternative to actual spells and SLAs, and not enough to turn anyone into a pocket sorc.

the solution could be to extend the cooldown on wands...if they cast at the user's spell power... they thing is spells are not used in ddo like we see in movies ar read in books, where 1 spell makes or breaks a battle. In ddo spells are a constant blasting of mobs over and over.

d&d is weird how they implement wands though...wands in most fantasy settings extend and enhance a wizard's power... they are not clickies.

Besides..if you are not a caster, I think a wand should be another tool to roast marshmallows on But, its just ddo...% thanks for the shield wand.

 

[droid327]

There is a reason I specifically specified only elemental spell power and none of the light/alignment/positive/negative stuff. And additionally it doesn't make up for the innately low DCs you get stuck with from wand and clicky casts. Sure you can stack on three wizard past lives for another +6 to saving throw DCs, but that isn't going to make a difference in epic really.

Well in Epic wands are functionally pointless even if they used every available bonus, just because Epic-relevant spells dont come on wands, especially ones that are vendor-available. Plus you have the issue of caster level for wands and clickies then too - something like Leg Ruby Encrusted Gauntlets is only giving you a CL17 Meteor Swarm, so even with full Power and Lore and decent DC, its still not going to be worth using at L30+. Arti AT capstone gets around that, but then you're either relegating their use to one specific build that's at best just gimmicky, or you're giving a capstone-tier ability to other casters (and circling back to "new tree for wand scroll clicky use" territory)

 

[Xgya]

I'd rather see a change where ALL wands are made Eternal and Exclusive.
Make them scale off 50% spell power. Wand Mastery increases that to 60, 70, 80. (or even up to 100).
Damage spell wands get the same treatment level 0 spell wands have. A ton of charges, all recharged on rest. For heroic-level use, make their minimum level 4 higher than they currently are (so a 7th level character can use CL5 3rd level spell wands).
A level 6 Wizard that's out of mana (or facing an enemy not worth spending mana on) should manage to have a fallback wand of Acid Arrow or Scorch, not one of a level 0 spell like Acid Splash.

You wouldn't exactly have to change them, but I'd make utility wands have less charges, some might only recharge X/rest instead of fully (so it's still a good idea to carry a bunch of scrolls of spells you know you'll need to cast a lot)

 

[Ying]

Overall I wish that more wands become available like prismatic spray, finger of death and hold monster. Lv9 spells could be available from chests.

Imagine if DDO had a crafting system that allowed you to make wands, scrolls and potions.

 

[Col Kurtz]

Imagine if DDO had a crafting system that allowed you to make wands, scrolls and potions.

haha i was trying not to bring up that idea,..since it feeds the ''casters are to OP'' mobz. But. it really makes sense...you're wands could cast at the crafted lvl...and would be bound to account. Would be cheesy if the lvl250 crafters controlled the supply of unbound wands that players would want.

I think all wands should be eternal..it's lame to have them run out while in a long chain of dungeons, and we should not have to carry 2-3 wands to make up for that. Recharges at bar & rest shrine