Wands? They seem so weak compared to other weapons

[MizaR]

They seem so nerfed I cast two shots and I'm out of mana completely, yet my attacks don't seem to do any more then other DPS classes. Sometimes I cast slightly more damage, but so what they can cast another 4 skill shots with their left over mana which completely out dps me. In other words, wands in there current state are not nearly as good as other weapons.

[Pion33r]

I so agree with this. They should lessen the SP cost of wands. Most people said we need to charge (hold shift) using other wand or use sp reduction magatama. As easy as it said. It doesn't really work at all. I can't even find a magatama with wand affinity. Or a magatama with huge sp reduction. So compare to other weapons they are so disregarded. It's as if they just made wand as a decoy to lure people who like mages and end up in missery. Or made this weapon just to have another variety

[ryuma]

I agree with them !! I play mages in all my games. But in this, I am disappointed
However, it's always BETA , so i shall wait for the future update

[Sunnova]

Back in the Alpha, wand was about as powerful as sword/odachi, but in CBT, they gimped it quite a bit.

-The powerful AOE spells begin to appear on higher level wands (16+). Combine with the terrible exp rate makes it seem like a far goal full of hardships.
-The SP charge for wands appear to drain more durability in the CBT than the Alpha. This was just my opinion and I have no hard numbers to support this.

In short, wands don't get better until you reach higher levels.

[MizaR]

Back in the Alpha, wand was about as powerful as sword/odachi, but in CBT, they gimped it quite a bit.

-The powerful AOE spells begin to appear on higher level wands (16+). Combine with the terrible exp rate makes it seem like a far goal full of hardships.
-The SP charge for wands appear to drain more durability in the CBT than the Alpha. This was just my opinion and I have no hard numbers to support this.

In short, wands don't get better until you reach higher levels.

Im Lvl 28 reached Kyoto and wands still get out dps by other classes yes the AOE spells help but the mana cost is so high i cant even cast 2 skills I have to cast the AOE skill then wait for enough to cast another. Mean while im watch the other classes cast skill after skill, and i meant to be the magic class, it's a joke!

[Kuurei]

Back in the Alpha, wand was about as powerful as sword/odachi, but in CBT, they gimped it quite a bit.

-The powerful AOE spells begin to appear on higher level wands (16+). Combine with the terrible exp rate makes it seem like a far goal full of hardships.
-The SP charge for wands appear to drain more durability in the CBT than the Alpha. This was just my opinion and I have no hard numbers to support this.

In short, wands don't get better until you reach higher levels.

Lol, seriously? They nerfed Wands compared to Odachi and such, but didn't INSTEAD go and balance the extremely-OP'd power based weapons with the Dex/Wis weapons? XD

[MizaR]

Back in the Alpha, wand was about as powerful as sword/odachi, but in CBT, they gimped it quite a bit.

How did they nerf the wand in comparison to Alpha, did the wand do more damage or require less mana?

[Sunnova]

How did they nerf the wand in comparison to Alpha, did the wand do more damage or require less mana?

Just realized a mistake on my part. When I means by "wands being as powerful as sword/odachi", I meant by being as viable as a damage weapon. The sword/odachi had their nuking skills, while the wands had their AOE, range, and more frequent status effect procs. I don't think anything can beat the odachi in raw power unless they bring back the "Ice Fang" axe.

The wands in the alpha had access to ridiculously strong AOE skills such as Ice pillar 2, Call thunder 3, and others. I do remember running Onishinden (now called Kishinden) and half the people were using odachi/axes, the other half were spamming Ice Pillar.
Also the SP costs for those AOE spells were ridiculously low for their power. You could easily cast 3 in a row before you run out of SP, but by then all mobs in the room would have been wiped after the second.
If you combine that with the better exp rates and early access to these AOE spells at lower levels, it was pretty common to see a room light up in magic before people switch to their swords and axes for the finisher.

Also in the Alpha, bow was extremely underpowered (average damage, but extremely low durability) so it was nonviable as a ranged weapon. Instead, people went to the wand as the "go-to" range weapon. The weapon specialization did not scale as much as this CBT too so people could be running full power builds, but would still be able to use wands if needed (I remember having an axe as my secondary due to its "ice fang" skill and it was one of the skills I would spam if my wand ones were on cooldown).

[Sylvienne]

I love wands. I think they're a fun solo class where time to kill stuff isn't an issue and people aren't rushing. 0 mana 60 hp spammable staff heal is reasonably funny if not really effective.

To be honest, I think they're in a good spot. The problem right now is that we're in a closed beta where everybody's level is low and pow and dex are just so attractive options to get past the rough early game with nice regular attacks and low cost skills relative to the amount of sp you regenerate with normal attacks. In comparison, we see magic with massive sp costs. However, unlike other classes, our sp costs go down over time as we get more wisdom. If the sp is decreased to match people at low levels, high level characters will be able to spam those for zero cost and that would be really silly with the already higher sp pool compared to weapon users. I'm sure once people hit higher levels, wands will more viable options.

I mean, if anybody really wanted to settle this, they could look at the jp version and check patch history to see if wands get some massive buffs. Cause then we'll know they really were underpowered.

[SeekerFate]

Indeed, in this video, the player seems to be doing just fine. (I haven't watched the whole thing second for second) Of course, it's a lvl 92 in a 76 ish hell dungeon so that's to be considered but their late game power hasn't really been shafted that much, although it may still pale in comparison to melee weapons which I haven't really seen/searched for much yet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O37qEww_6-M

Also, from checking "some" of their update notes and sifting through google translate, at a quick glance there hasn't been any main wand buffs that I've noticed besides maybe misc changes and tweaks here and there. Again, I've only looked through some of it so there may be a potential patch that I've missed, maybe I'll get back to it more seriously in the future.

Yes, I personally do think that the main problem is that they are downright useless due to the nature of this cbt as it takes roughly mid-game (40-50) to start being efficient although I think there's videos of a lvl 33 doing sekigahara's grim reaper so I guess roughly lvl 30 should be the starting point for expecting any real efficiency from wands.