Wand Crafting in Wand Lore

Discussion in 'Suggestions' started by Embolus, Jul 22, 2011.

  1. Embolus

    Embolus Member

    I noticed that in the Crafting Database, there are recipes for wands tied to the Alchemy skill, but are disabled with a comment that they may be overpowered.

    While that may be as Alchemy already does so much, what about tying the wand crafting recipes into Wand Lore instead? To balance things out, perhaps Wand Hack could be removed. Currently, the Wand Lore skill is not very useful because it is impossible to reduce entropy burn to zero, and the minimum 5 entropy burn is too high to even consider using wands as even a secondary form of combat.

    If Wand Lore allows wand crafting, including recipes to repair burnt-out wands, it may become a far more useful skill and actually viable as a form of combat. As it is, there is no reason to level the skill because if you do choose it, you only ever need the first skill as everything else is just not worth it; unless you're after the Sagacity bonus as a Mage.
     
  2. Haldurson

    Haldurson Member

    :Last time I tried wand lore, I actually was able to reduce entropy to zero was that something new, or something that was eliminated?
     
  3. Tacroy

    Tacroy Member

    Embolus mis-typed; you can reduce entropy to 0, but not burn rate (which is really what kills you).

    But yeah, turning Wand Lore into a sort of wand crafting skill sounds like a good idea. It would work like orb crafting - you can craft a wand from any burnt out wand. It would make the skill much less luck-based.
     
  4. Sunhawk

    Sunhawk Member

    Re-invigorating a burnt out wand or using it to craft a new random one would definitely be a perfect capstone for wand affinity.
     
  5. J-Factor

    J-Factor Member

    +1 to replacing Wand Hack with re-invigorating burnt out wands.

    Stops people from hacking for the best wands only and forces players to adapt to whatever wand they happen to get back.

    ---

    Has anyone tried Wand Lore on a non-magic character? It seems like you could keep a constant Voltaic Empowerment (+4 Voltaic Damage, +12 Voltaic Resistance) up just by finding one Wand of Tesla as the Recharge cooldown is shorter than the buff duration.
     
  6. NefariousKoel

    NefariousKoel Member

    Wand Lore on a melee oriented character wouldn't be a bad idea considering the recharge skill gives a small magic debuff when used, it wouldn't bother you much.
     
  7. Embolus

    Embolus Member

    Yes, I meant the burn rate rather than the actual entropy. Fixed now.

    And yes, it is true that Wand Lore is not a bad idea for non-Mages for the ability to clear debuffs, heal and such, but the problem is as I said: there is no reason to level the skill at all, all you need is Charge Wand. Everything else is only useful if you intend to use wands as a form of combat, and even then they don't enough to make wand combat viable.
     
  8. nickwolf

    nickwolf Member

    you mean having the abillity to make wants almost perpetually useful? that seems somewhat broken..
     
  9. Tacroy

    Tacroy Member

    I know, next we'll be wanting to make swords and crossbows perpetually useful! How broken is that!

    Just because something grants an advantage doesn't mean it's broken. That's why they're called "skills", after all - they're an advantage other characters don't have.
     
  10. NefariousKoel

    NefariousKoel Member

    Yeah, I look at wands (and the skill) as just a more variable alternative to Crossbows. Even with the Recharge skill, you can't use them all the time due to the cooldown. Although if you spend points in it, you can use them more between charges.
     
  11. Kagemaru

    Kagemaru Member

    Tac, swords and crossbows are perpetually useful, you're able to recraft swords to Tier 5 as long as you get a recipe (even without, Tier 4 is still strong), and same with crossbows except you can also find bolt recipes (find one EVERY game I've played) that make it even stronger.

    But while Wand Lore is useless, Rather than recrafting broken wands (and making it so that finding new ones is just free money), maybe make it a false recraft so that Brax buys it for more (if he even discounts for the difference between working and broken wands).
     
  12. nickwolf

    nickwolf Member

    I mean that wands are very destructive and useful.. I can understand making them reusable to an extent and a hard limit, but infinite use? thats definitely broken considering how powerful some of the wands are
     
  13. J-Factor

    J-Factor Member

    Wands already have infinite use, subject to the cooldown of Rod Recharge. All we are suggesting is a way to make using wands with entropy above 0 less of a gamble.

    Another solution I thought of is changing Wand Affinity. Instead of:

    Burndown = Wand Burndown - Wand Affinity

    ...we could have:

    Entropy = Wand Entropy - Wand Affinity

    With high Wand Affinity you could use wands multiple times with no chance of a burn out.
     
  14. Embolus

    Embolus Member

    Kagemaru, I think Tac was being sarcastic...

    J-Factor, I don't really understand what you're talking about. =|
     
  15. J-Factor

    J-Factor Member

    @Embolus

    Instead of Wand Affinity reducing the amount of entropy per wand use it would instead change the minimum amount of entropy required before you risk burning out the wand.

    Right now anything above 0 entropy has a risk of burn out. With this idea you could, for example, have 6 Wand Affinity mean you're safe from burn outs until you have over 6 entropy. This would also make finding low burn rate wands much more valuable (as Wand Affinity would no longer affect burn rate).
     
  16. Embolus

    Embolus Member

    I understand now, and I really like that idea. Although the tree would obviously need to provide more than 6 Wand Affinity for that to be worth it.
     
  17. Bronze

    Bronze Member

    "If Wand Lore allows wand crafting, including recipes to repair burnt-out wands, it may become a far more useful skill and actually viable as a form of combat. As it is, there is no reason to level the skill because if you do choose it, you only ever need the first skill as everything else is just not worth it; unless you're after the Sagacity bonus as a Mage. "


    THIS!
     
  18. IanExMachina

    IanExMachina Member

    My suggestions from another thread:

    Wand Lore:

    Add in some new abilities at level up such as:
    - A buff that gives a 50% chance at stopping a wand burnout.

    - High level ability to create a random wand. (High recharge time, created wands sell for nothing.)

    - High level ability to repair a burnt out wand. (Either this or the wand creation ability as both would be overpowered.)

    Wands:
    More varied and unique wands would also breathe new life into the skill, especially if some of the new wands had effects that weren't replicated by spells in another skill tree, as whilst non WL players could find and use these wands, those with the WL skill would be able to re-use/replace.
    Such as:

    - Wand of Krong. (It looks like a blacksmith hammer). When used it casts an buff (that can't be cancelled) on the player with random bonuses (like if you put an item on a Krong Anvil) that lasts for 5 attacks. Although beware, you may displease Krong and get a harmful 'buff'.

    - Diggle Beak Wand (Looks like a diggle beak, obviously.) Cast on an enemy, acts like the 'Curse of the Golden Ratio' however instead of dropping gold the enemy drops diggle eggs.

    - Finger Wand (Looks like a finger). When used it creates a large damaging toxic gas cloud on your location. (Flavour text: 'Pull my finger' or something similar.)

    - Double Ended Wand (Looks like a wand?) Cast on an enemy, when used you switch places with the targeted enemy.

    I'm sure there are many other unique spells that could be created for wand usage.
     
  19. Fatdude

    Fatdude Member

    What about changing the random wand skill into, Charge your wand but you might have changed some other things also type of skill?It charges your wand and it has a %50 chance of changing the type of wand while doing that.So ppl cant constantly repair same type of wand and get it back.

    So instead of crafting you will use what you find and you can burn out the wands you want to reset and get another random wand out of it.

    Maybe a limit of only 2 recharges per wand could also be usefull because after some time you will have too much wands.