The state of Wand slingers: Undeniable proof why wands are not viable and why GGG should fix them

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SL4Y3R wrote:

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bhavv wrote:

Except that stacking elemental damage, aura and crit nodes makes you far far stronger than stacking wand nodes does.

Aren't most wand nodes physical?

You don't take those, they suck donkey balls.

The only wand node you ever took was Fusilade and that was it, because the rest were total junk. Plus Catalyze, Inner Force, EB, and then just power charges, throatseeker, and bloodlust notables with Anger / Wrath / Hatred.

Now that entire build is destroyed because you need to dump crit nodes to take aura nodes.

They're junk if you're an elemental build yes. Otherwise, some are pretty nice.

And then we get back to the point of 'wheres my physical wand, and why wont one ever drop for me?'

What do people think of this for an elemental wander?

http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgMBBAcEswdjCPQOSA_EEZYUTRZAFm8XLxmFGdcdFB8CIvQkPCSqJpUnqSlPLR8vbzGIMok2ezbFNuk7fEcGSTtJUUyzUDBQQlVLVcZV1lcrV-JabVqmXvpfamKsY0Nk52ZPZp5rF20ZcFJwu3DVc1N35XkDfdJ_xoCkgUmCHoV9iGuMC4w2j0aP-p2jnaqiAKIuoqOnCKdcsji0o7jKuXzAUcBUwfPPZdDQ1p3YJNkT2wvb59zH42rjhOaB7DjssPAf8-r60vyr

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ziggro wrote:

+ 1 to OP

In a side note, my wander have like 15 ex in gear and SUCKS after the aura changes. im NOT complaining about auras lol, just saying that wanders r bad now.

15 ex in gear? So what, you have an Auxium and nothing else?

Wander is an expensive build, this is nothing new.

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SL4Y3R wrote:

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bhavv wrote:

Except that stacking elemental damage, aura and crit nodes makes you far far stronger than stacking wand nodes does.

Aren't most wand nodes physical?

It haw always been vastly stronger to stack WED nodes/WED gear over taking any wand nodes at all.

This is common knowledge.

Im a wand veteran so let me do summary of what wander can, and should do now :

Run 3 60% auras that are totally required : wrath, anger/hatred, and determination/grace.
Clarity, if you are ele wander is a must.
Arctic Armour is insane and wanders can easly use it.
50% chance to crit minimut pretty much, so you crit like mad.
Wield a shield while beeing ranged attack projectile character.
After life buff my wander went from 3.2 k life to 4.2 (with a bit changed gear tho)
INSANE DAMAGE.
Need insane investment into mana regen, mana nodes, eb is a must, wand nodes and power charges are miles away from eachother.
Since you are heavy into top of the tree, accuracy isnt that good. Gotta invest some points into that. Thats a must, even with 100+ accuracy on every piece of gear.
Requires insane gear to be ready for real man maps.

Summary : very hard to pull of, only for the most eperienced, insane dps, squishy.

My build
http://www.pathofexile.com/passive-skill-tree/AAAAAgYBAnEEBwR-BLMF-Q5IEZYUTRXwFm8XLxmKGjgajxrbHNwdFB4aHpQfAiP2JDwmlSepKU8ppSpbLR8tgzKJNsU26TpYOrM_c0lRSn1Ms04qUDBQQlM1VUtVxlXWVvpX4lpIWm1br2KsY0Nk52aeZ6BtGW1sbXtwUnC7cNVyw3fleLp4zn_GgKSCHoV9hxmHdow2j0aQVZMnlwabtZ2qn3uiAKIuoqOnCKdcp4SrC6w_tUjAGsBRwfPEoswGz2XQ0NIZ0xvVANad1tHYJNsC2wvcV90N42rjhOdU7DjuDu_w8B_22vlj-tL7CfzF_5M=

Your survival build sux, clearly u did not think it true.

You don't specialize in elemental ore physical damage, so you become a scion instead of a wanderer. secondly you take retarded nodes and a stupid start position.

If you wanna make a wanderer with survivability think about going iron grip + marauder start, then you will have survivability + physical poef.

I don't understand why you limit yourself to such an awful part of the tree for a wanderer.

I made some wanderer groundplans after reading this thread, i made them on the site so i dont know the overall stats.

ranger wanderer start



templar wanderer start (lacking acc imo)


I think they are all still viable lol, just cant abuse 5/7 aura's anymore so deal with it xD!

And wands are sooo hard to craft, making the joy when u have one sooooo great!

IVIetal, i dont understand your build, you say you are running 5 aura's, yet u don't take +40% aura effeciency nearby also u don't take static blows and you run wrath? you could reduce your damage saving on points and take static blows for +90% dps.

My phys wander pre 1.0.




My phys wander post 1.0.



What is pretty annoying, I could have left her exactly specced as she was pre 1.0, same gear.
She would have been unplayable solo, but much more powerful than pre 1.0 if grouped.

I could respec her to be playable solo, but really, really bad. But she would still have been more powerful than pre 1.0, if grouped.

Or, I could, with another 10 passive points and at least 100 exalts worth of new gear, make her similarly powerful to pre 1.0, solo. And she would be massively powerful in a group, like unfuckingbelievable.


Pretty good patch that 1.0 to address the solo v group thing.

The premise of this thread is WAY off. In fact, with the changes to 1.0 I would argue that no weapon in the entire tree got a bigger buff than wands. Instead, the problem is that you are viewing wands with a pre 1.0 mindset.

I agree that prior to 1.0 that wands were literally only for the extremely rich players who could afford to throw exalt after exalt, on top of much other currency(see willy wonka for proof.)

However, now there is a new gem that makes wands perhaps the most overpowered weapon in the game with the only possible exception as daggers. But, daggers require you to be on top of the mob to hit so I still think Wands takes the cake.

That gem is the Cast on Crit gem.

I have said since release that wands and staves are not being taken seriously yet. Please think along the lines of cast on crit and consider the incredible list of prefixes and suffixes that Wands can have. In the past, someone building a wand would throw away the +spell dmg mod, or the + spell critical chance mod.

In light of the cast on crit gem these 2 mods are INSANELY powerfull. In fact, they are borderline OP.

Staves and daggers also can have many of these spell friendly mods but the difference is the wand nodes are smack in the middle of the most friendly part of the tree for spell casters and have plenty of easily accessible crit nodes not far away to help take advantage of these incredible new support gems.


As you can see, the problem isn't that wands are weak, but that your way of thinking is antiquated.