A (somewhat) Radical Propsal for Wandcrafting

Discussion in 'Suggestions' started by Essence, Dec 8, 2012.

  1. Essence

    Essence Will Mod for Digglebucks

    Lorrelian, you're right -- that would be awesome! But because of a bug, it can't work (already had that idea.) Craft outputs naturally stack in the inventory, and as soon as you have a stack of wands, you have a bug wherein you can recharge any wand to the amount of charges held by the most-charged wand in a stack just by putting it back in the stack and removing it again. So no multiple-wand-per-craft shenanigans. :(

    Vitellozzo, you're almost right, except :savvy: is the Rogue/Wizard crossover stat. So scaling to :savvy: means that both Rogues and Wizards are wand badasses, and either one who takes Wandcraft will be 50% more (or 150% as :p) badass with them.


    A few things. First, Rogues don't have several things that wands give them:
    • Spammable AoEs
    • Walls on command
    • Uncurse effects
    • Repeatable healing

    Second, Wandcraft also gives other benefits that Rogues direly need -- specifically Magic Resist and exotic damage bonuses.

    Finally, gear is everywhere -- wands are fairly rare. You maybe find 2-3 per floor, and most of them are combat wands, which are currently merely an inefficent way to carry Zorkmids around. By making combat wands viable into the late floors, you make wands much more desirable, and thus the ability to create whichever ones you need more desirable as well.

    Post-finally, Rogues already love Piracy and Perception. So synergy.
     
    Kazeto, Vitellozzo and OmniaNigrum like this.
  2. Lorrelian

    Lorrelian Member

    Bleh, we still have that bug? That makes me sad. :(
     
    Vitellozzo and OmniaNigrum like this.
  3. Shreeper

    Shreeper Member

    The only one of those that's not in the :alchemy: skill already is the walls on command and frankly, while it is a powerful effect I don't see anybody picking :wand_burn: over :alchemy: just for the sake of the one odd Stony Wand that you find/craft. Especially seeing how :alchemy: provides so much more utility with "neo-:wand_burn:" only really surpassing it in the AOE department. :tinkerer: is kinda the opposite, providing you with less utility but much more powerful results in terms of some of the best craftable gear and a number of really powerfull comsumeables. Not mentioning :smithing: on purpose because it haven't really got anything in common with :wand_burn: and thus is not a contestent for the skillslot.

    Now you could argue that "neo-:wand_burn:" is going to be able to provide some kind of middleground between :alchemy:'s utility and :tinkerer:'s raw power but that'd either force you to add more wands, give them better effects, buff their damage through the roof or make wands more accessable if you want to compete. Not to mention that even if you pick "neo-:wand_burn:" on a rogue/wizard (let's not mention that Wand Lore becomes a dead draw for warriors) your crafted wands and 5 skill points are still likely to fall short to Bolt of Squid, Bolt of Mass Destruction, Holy Hand Grenade and so on.

    Adding more wands is unlikely because... well, sprites, although there's an unused Diggle Wand sprite in the game files *nudge nudge*, although it'd be one way to compete with :alchemy:. Buffing their damage through the roof, to a muh greater extent than what you're doing now, would be another way to make the skill appealing, sadly it'd also make it uninteresting and possibly a tad broken. Giving wands better effects, which some of them are due for anyway (Pearlescent Wand, why u no special effect on demons/undead?!) is both a very likely and interesting way to solve the issue but sadly there's only so many wands and it'd quickly become rather complicated, especially when wands arn't contained within their own skill. Finally there's the option of making them more accessable which is arguebly both the most simple and elegant solution as you'd remove some of the randomness that is the bane of actively using wands, simply adding a randomize skill or changing the recipes slightly would be more than sufficient.

    Yes, gear is everywhere and wands are fairly rare, which is my point exactly. The character who picks "neo-:wand_burn:", assuming you only settle for the :savvy: fix, would therefore only get a situational +30-50% damage boost benefit over a character without "neo-:wand_burn:". For an item that might not even suit the situation even. Sure he can always "just" craft new wands but the reagents are so, well, odd and the wands themselves so situational and different from one another that he/she can't just create new ones all willy-nilly and hope to achive the same benefits from his 5 skill points that a :alchemy:, :smithing: or :tinkerer: character would. Especially considering that you're limited exclusively to consumeables and a very limited list of consumeables at that too.

    Also, as (not) mentioned before Wand Lore'd become a dead'er draw for warrior characters which is neither fun nor fair. Yes my suggestion would limit wands to :wand_burn: characters but it dosen't exclude an entire class on virtue of them not having :savvy: as a main stat.

    Now as mentioned before I don't think it's a bad idea at all, just that it's misguided and quite frankly not very well thought through. It may be due to my pessimistic nature but you're being very optimistic regarding the Wand Lore skill and forgetting things like the "forager syndrome".

    PS: Nacho; if you want me to reply to you please don't respond to several individual points in my posts. It's annoying to read and much more so to reply to.
     
    OmniaNigrum likes this.
  4. Vitellozzo

    Vitellozzo Member

    Oh, it's still ok (better, really), since flavour wise both rogues and wizards could wands effectively in combat. Rogues need those more, wizards are naturally gifted at them, and warriors... Warriors can just use Zodiac Wands and be happy anyway. Maybe a Stone Wand when things get hot, and a little from Coral Wand can help too - they will still smash everything. And if they take :wand_burn:. Bum. Things get real.
     
    Lorrelian and OmniaNigrum like this.
  5. Essence

    Essence Will Mod for Digglebucks

    Yes, but you have to remember that crafting a single Potion of Purity and crafting a Zodiacal Wand are two completely different power levels. Removing a single debuff vs. 10 debuffs from a single craft is a mountain of power on the side of :wand_burn:. When you add to that the fact that every time you use up a wand, it gives you the base tool you need to make a new wand (Burnt-Out Wands), things tilt even further toward Wands being your best renewable source of the effects you most want to spam.
     
    Kazeto, Vitellozzo and OmniaNigrum like this.
  6. Vitellozzo

    Vitellozzo Member

    And, after all, as already said in this thread, piracy, clockwork knight and perception give you almost every item you'll need to make wands.
    So, lot's of wands with the right build!
     
    OmniaNigrum likes this.
  7. Nacho

    Nacho Member

    Actually Wand Lore only gives 30%. The other 20% comes from items and Rogue Scientist's capstone.

    So you'd rather limit them to a single skill tree than 2/3rds of all skill trees? That seems a little off.


    I'm sorry, but when you have such long posts, breaking them up is the only way to reply to them. Otherwise I can't direct my responses to what I'm responding to.
     
  8. mining

    mining Member

    Proposal: Make wandlore a max tier skill, with latter tiers giving MOAR WANDCRAFTING, i.e. 1/1/1/1/1/1/2/3 or something.​
     
    OmniaNigrum likes this.
  9. Essence

    Essence Will Mod for Digglebucks

    :thinking about that idea:
     
    OmniaNigrum likes this.
  10. Nacho

    Nacho Member

    If you're going to do that, you might as well just increase the :wand_burn: scaling on every wand. Same net effect (wand lore boosts wand damage more), but without the craftless wand lore levels. I don't believe people will take extra levels in Wand Lore just to deal more damage with their wands though You would need to introduce more wands to craft at 8 and 11 :wand_burn: for that to work, or else give some other reason to take those last 2 levels.
     
    Kazeto, Vitellozzo and OmniaNigrum like this.
  11. Essence

    Essence Will Mod for Digglebucks

    Yeah, I'm mostly in accord. And I'm not into making more wands because sprites.
     
    Vitellozzo and OmniaNigrum like this.
  12. Nacho

    Nacho Member

    Can you make Camera into a craftable though? I think it's the only wand Wand Lore can't craft.
     
    OmniaNigrum likes this.
  13. Essence

    Essence Will Mod for Digglebucks

    Sure. Wandcraft needs a good wand for 7th level. :)
     
    OmniaNigrum likes this.
  14. You can't create multiple wands with one craft - but could you create an alternate version of the wand with more charges? Like, say, create a new item called the "Engorged" Wand of Laser (it's throbbing with potent arcane power!) that overwrites the wand of laser recipe once you get 6:wand_burn:, and is exactly identical to the regular Wand of Laser except it has 24 charges instead of 12?
     
  15. Vitellozzo

    Vitellozzo Member

    And the Naarwhaand.
     
    Turbo164 and OmniaNigrum like this.
  16. Essence

    Essence Will Mod for Digglebucks

    vacantVisionary: That would work, actually. :thinking hard about this:

    Vitellozzo: Aye. :)
     
    OmniaNigrum and Vitellozzo like this.
  17. Vitellozzo

    Vitellozzo Member

    Think fast, grab the gold!
    Good advice, Visionary.
     
    mining and OmniaNigrum like this.
  18. Shreeper

    Shreeper Member

    ...also meatwand.

    It's an amazing idea though, thumbs up and all that from here.
     
    Giygas, Vitellozzo and OmniaNigrum like this.
  19. Nacho

    Nacho Member

    I'm also fine with it.
     
    OmniaNigrum and Vitellozzo like this.
  20. Essence

    Essence Will Mod for Digglebucks


    New info from GLG: floorScaleF is in face broken, but it's been replaced with zoorkmidScaleF, whichironically has nothing tori with Zorkmids and instead allows an effect to scale to (floor number plus one) -- so scaling by floor is totally possible (but arbitrarily makes effects weaker in Dibble Hell / Wizardlands / Mysterious Portals, and so is still not great for wands.
     
    Vitellozzo and OmniaNigrum like this.