Wands!

[Grog]

Playing a melee centric character and wondering about wands as I've never really used them on other characters.
What are the must haves for a melee? And where does one get them?

[chad878262]

Must haves depends on build and equipment. The ones I really like to have are death ward, IMA, Shield, least mantle, dimension door, pfe, silence and barkskin.

You get them by purchasing from player crafters.

Edit: here's a partial wand guide I was working on (and will get back to eventually). It's incomplete and based on feedback maybe partially inaccurate with regard to caster levels, but is still at least better than nothing...

viewtopic.php?f=149&t=58258&start=0

[Grog]

Must haves depends on build and equipment. The ones I really like to have are death ward, IMA, Shield, least mantle, dimension door, pfe, silence and barkskin.

You get them by purchasing from player crafters.

Edit: here's a partial wand guide I was working on (and will get back to eventually). It's incomplete and based on feedback maybe partially inaccurate with regard to caster levels, but is still at least better than nothing...

viewtopic.php?f=149&t=58258&start=0

Thanks, this helps me a lot!

[AlfarinIcebreaker]

Shield you can get from Brooch of Shielding which is reusable 1/day item, but it costs 13-15k. On a 2h character/dual wielder it is very important. I agree with chad's list, I would maybe add See Invisibility and Invisibility there. Also Displacement, Haste and Mirror Image are good shouts.

Edit : And yeah, Chad that is a great guide, I'd love if you could finish it. Even vetaran players can learn something from it, and for lowbies it is invaluable information.

[chad878262]

Shield you can get from Brooch of Shielding which is reusable 1/day item, but it costs 13-15k. On a 2h character/dual wielder it is very important. I agree with chad's list, I would maybe add See Invisibility and Invisibility there. Also Displacement, Haste and Mirror Image are good shouts.

Edit : And yeah, Chad that is a great guide, I'd love if you could finish it. Even vetaran players can learn something from it, and for lowbies it is invaluable information.

I can't believe I missed Invisibility, See Invisibility (though I prefer Blindsight) and MIRROR IMAGE! Must still be jet lagged...

As to haste and displacement I'm not a fan of wands. I would rather save up and get use per day haste items and displacement cloaks. The wands are CL5 so last 30 seconds while the use/day items come in 10 round (haste) and 9 round (displacement) varieties. If you get lucky you can find boots with 2 or 3 uses per day of 10 round haste, which is almost as good as the epic feat blinding speed (4 times per day of 10 round haste). Meanwhile the Cloak of displacement gives 3/day displacement (9). For shield I prefer the wand because carrying multiple rings/broaches eats inventory space. Wands are cheap enough to craft (3,750 + bone wand) and they drop often enough that alongside the ability to recharge I find them a better option than 1/day use items which you would want to carry at least 5 or 6 of...

As to the guide, I will try and set aside some time today to get back in to it... Step 1 has always been just going through the Wiki wand guide and giving some thoughts on those, step 2 will be to correct the inaccuracies and work on adding custom spells and other wands that are not included on the wiki list. Good times.

[Theodore01]

As to haste and displacement I'm not a fan of wands. ... The wands are CL5 so last 30 seconds while the use/day items come in 10 round (haste) and 9 round (displacement) varieties.

You're wrong here.
The haste (crafted) wand has a cl. of 10.
The (crafted) displacement wand has a cl. of 9. (But a wand of greater invisibility is cl.7)

[chad878262]

As to haste and displacement I'm not a fan of wands. ... The wands are CL5 so last 30 seconds while the use/day items come in 10 round (haste) and 9 round (displacement) varieties.

You're wrong here.
The haste (crafted) wand has a cl. of 10.
The (crafted) displacement wand has a cl. of 9. (But a wand of greater invisibility is cl.7)

Yeah, the found wands are CL5 for Haste and Displacement, but the crafted ones are CL10/9. Still the fact that there are use/day items that give as many as 3/day makes wands a bit less attractive. If a Broach of Shielding gave 3/day it would definitely make shield wands less attractive as two broaches would give 30 minutes per rest of shield, vs. needing 6 of them at 1/day.

[AlfarinIcebreaker]

Remind me, where can one buy those cloaks of Displacement? I forgot. Also, Haste is practically only found on that pair of +4 AC gloves from CK?

[chad878262]

Remind me, where can one buy those cloaks of Displacement? I forgot. Also, Haste is practically only found on that pair of +4 AC gloves from CK?

The cloaks show up either on forums or Mudds from time to time for around 20K. As to Haste, there are eelskin boots that give haste 2/day and boots of speed that give haste 3/day (both CL10). These tend to be more expensive as they are a bit rare, but still cheaper than the gloves with +4 AC and haste 1/day. Simple Haste (10) 1/day items show up on Mudds relatively often for ~7,500-10K, 2/day is fairly rare and sells usually for the 30-40K range and 3/day I've seen offered for sale a couple times and IIRC went for 100K. Seems high, except when you consider Blinding Speed gives Haste (10) 4/day and costs an epic feat. The Haste wand is still a good option, but if you want haste up nonstop you'll burn through a full wand of charges in 2 adventure cycles. If you are using it mostly for boss battles, large spawn groups or emergencies then just having 3 or 4 use per day items in inventory is enough (depending on how many uses per day each item gives.)