I'd really like to like wands, but they seem to be resource intensive and don't scale well with level or wandcraft skill. There are a few nice high-level encrusts, but nothing so much better than another crafting field that you'd take wandcrafting for that. Even as a support skill for a mage is there a good reason to take this skill? What am I missing?
Wandcraft is actually better for the Gish or Warrior who wants spells. Wands give exotic damages, healing, ect, along with a good amount of magic res. and a whopping 6 aetherial damage.
It has some good encrusts, in particular a good defensive/resists shield one. Zodiac/Coral wands are good utility. The free ranged damage is probably more of use to melee classes, as stated above.
I usually don't play Gishes or Wizards, but I will have to virtually play with Wandcrafting every build to get the achievement. I'd personally avoid other crafting skills specifically because of the inventory sorting/managment, even with Pocket Dimension. Otherwise I'd be in the Pocket Dimension 90% of the time.
Thanks, I guess that makes sense. I'm just wanting it to be something that it's not (mages utility kit, rather than non-mages utility kit). @Wolg I've maxed rogue scientist and wandcraft before (for a total of 8 levels of wandcraft). It was very underwhelming.
Probably the mana cost, but it's a deadly spell. At maximum wand level it does 50 Aetherial +0.34+Savvy Electric. If you can get 100 Savvy, it does 84 damage and costs 15 mana. Thor's Fulmeric Bolt scales of Magical Power, which is arguably easier, arguably tougher to get than Savvy - could go either way, really (Boosted a lot less from leveling, a lot more from items). But overall, if you have 100 MP it does 77 Electric + 24 blasting. Dredmor will resist all the blasting, and 15 of the electric and none of the Aetherial. So Thor's Fulmeric Bolt will do 62 to Dredmor, the Death Ray will do 69. Of course Thor's will cost around 5 at that point, and Death Ray will cost around 15. It seems balanced by the fact Rogue Scientists don't use a ton of mana necessarily, while casters love that stuff. Overall, comparing well to Thor's Fulmeric Bolt is a nice place to be.
I never would take wandcrafting with a Rogue Scientist build because it would involve 3 out of 4 Crafting skills, which would mean inventory management nightmare, even with Pocket Dimension. The only thing that could possibly be worse would be to add smithing to the mix to use all 4 crafting skills at once. Not to mention the competition for resources if you don't have perception/piracy.
I just took Wandcrafting for a Necro run - Zodiac wands rock. Also the encrusts, as mentioned, are very nice. The really holy shield for example... Priceless.
I get all the wandcrafting I need from scrounging up every single piece of providing equipment. For those who don't know, it's 1 Bergstrom's Hat and 2 from two black pearl rings. And then, if you want The Bomb without taking Wandcrafting, you can always take Rogue Scientist and get a Diggle God of Secrets blessing. Edit: Apparently, i'm a liar. The Diggle God of Secrets doesn't give ; apparently he gives the old entropy thing that wands used to use.
Aethereal damage - worth it for any crosspow guys, since Dreadmor doesn't resist it. Coral Wands - obvious healing, but available with Rogue Scientist on it's own. Zodiacal Wands - for getting rid of any debuffs. Technicaly, maxing Wandrafting, Unarmed and Vegan gives you 10 5 on any attack without including skills (+12 on top of it if using double Universal Principles). And it also gives you wands that take off Vegan debuffs. And that's just a low power use for it, but makes anything you shoot from a crossbow or simply lob at dreadmor actually do 15-27 damage to him. If you can stay away from him and use the sonic wand (notice it's a wand) to take away his spell casting, you can kill him this way. There's also probably more ways to stack relevan damage on your ranged attacks. EDIT: Low power, but also sort of no effort appart from putting skill points into it and looking for just for components of certain wands. Editd for Sonic wands.
Coral Wands are for healing Zoadical or so are for removing debuffs. Just correcting, would not want anyone to pop a coral wand to remove a debuff, would we?
Changed, ty. But that's sort of the general line of thinking, at least related to that. Maybe there's other perks, but these are no brainer ones.
@Ruigi & greyICE : I don't remember the hard numbers, but (on rogue diff.) it did a small percentage of the life totals of enemies. Mind you, the only mage skills I had were maxed potions and wands, so I didn't have a lot of mana. That said, all of the other skills were incredibly powerful. Especially acidical projector and poison canister. Those were killers. (Honestly, if you just drop the current capstone it's still a really flavorful and powerful skilltree. <-- I did like the idea though. That said I occasionally tried to kill even a single monster (I realize the area affect was a strength of course) with death ray during cooldown times and don't recall being succesfull... ? Already beat dremor with that build and it was permadeath so no save file, sorry. Probably easy to use a cheat mod and play around with it though, no? Maybe, with so many damaging skills already you could have it apply some other effect. Like a slow damaging debuff; "transmutation + damages"; or the like. It did have nice flavor @Arron : It was the first time I'd ever done anything much with crafting and basically didn't do much crafting at all; I just used them ad damage boosters and to make a bunch of high-powered bolts to use on Dredmore near the end of the game. (NTtG & no perception skill) That said it was my first dredmor kill (Not being a mage and accidentally runnign through traps on the bottom levels is probably the main issue there. That said all of the abilities have a long cooldown, so I'd recommend less crafting just so you have more to do in the interim. (I'd take magical law now of course. @lujo86 : Does the dazed debuff prevent spellcasting?!
Well the vet's have been pointing out the Sonic Wand as a way to silence Dredmor, so I'd assume so. Techincaly, I posted a build that seemed to have no healing or ways to deal with dredmor (and something else), and just sticking Rogue Scientist in there seemed to fix all of the problems - so I assume so. You probably need to craft a bunch of them though.
The spell has to hit before the magic resistance can be applied(I think, but not sure). Tougher lord dredmor has 91 magic resist, so you might want more than one wand. A teleport would be handy also, cause those who can't cast, usually advance toward you to melee.
The Stony Wand is great for Zoo's and getting out of messes (hurts 'em, creates walls). The Naarlwand kicks some serious individual and AOE butt. The Wand of Laser is another good one for Zoo's, as it not only hurts those you hit with it, but sets that tile aflame (and any stepping into it, on fire also). The Tentacular wand is another AOE winner, too. Still, more OT, if you're not into gish builds, it's a mage, I wouldn't take it. Wands by themselves are still pretty handy. (oh, and the Handy Wand is a good 'un, push them back . . . ) http://www.dredmorwiki.com/wiki/Wands
