Prologue
Greetings fellow Oni! Recently there have been many guides about most melee weapons (and bows) in this game and hopefully, this guide would be able to fill the void on information about wands and staff. This guide does not have to be followed by heart, nor is it the instructions on how to become the "best wand user that can outclass any other classes". You are free to correct me if you think I am wrong or dismiss sections that completely go against your beliefs. The purpose of this guide is to provide information and more insight on the wand/staff's playstyle based on my experience.
I am currently playing as Mariah Lune, my first and only character in Onigiri online. I've played in the EN alpha, closed beta test, and the current official release. For all three sessions, I've lived by the wand/staff hybrid so I am quite familiar with it. As of July 16, 2014, I am level 44 and in Kaga desperately grinding more levels until I am no longer a burden to other people. I also have school work to attend to so forgive me if I do not have any information about Segi or Kaga. Other than that, I'll turn this guide over to Mariah. Have fun (and forgive her for her bad puns)!
"Mariah with her darling Miroku in Kaga. She hasn't got him in her debt yet, but she did manage to convince him to take a photo with her. Best of luck you too!"
Table of Content
0. Change log
1. Introduction (1.0.0.0)
2. Creating your character (2.0.0.0)
3. Your trusty spells (3.0.0.0)
-----a. Wand
---------i. Single target spells
---------ii. AOE spells
-----b. Staff
---------i. Heals
---------ii. Buffs {WIP}
---------iii. Offensive {WIP}
4.) Setup {N/A}
---------i. Point Distribution
---------ii. Weapon setup
5.) Playstyle {N/A}
---------i. Jack of all trades, master of none
---------ii. Healer
---------iii. Offensive
Change Log
-(July 16, 2014) Released guide!
-(July 20, 2014) Added Staff - Heals
Forming the Contract (Introduction) 1.0.0.0
There you are, sitting aside on the bleachers watching all the other normal Oni run around and play sports and wishing you can join them...but you can't. You never had a great physique to begin with so you were always the last Oni to be chosen in teams. You want to be powerful, to make monsters tremble, to make your classmates look to you and say, "Wow (insert name here), I never knew you were that strong! You are cool!"
As you sigh, a mysterious voice says behind you, "Would you like to form a contract with me?"
So you've taken a quick look at all the other weapons and found the wand or staff intriguing? Well my dear, you are on your way to embracing the hidden power inside you. Having interest or love for the wand or staff is needed if you don't want to lose your motivation.
Now time for a basic overview of the two weapons.
The wand is a ranged weapon that casts mainly ranged, elemental spells. Its basic attacks have mediocre damage with a medium-slow combo between the speed of the odachi and the katana. However it has a massive variety of skills ranging from single target spells to large AOE spells. All of the wand's skills cost a lot of SP in comparison with other weapons so bring those SP pots!
The staff is a weapon with a melee basic attack combo but ranged skills. Its melee attack is weak but fast, while its skills range from holy damage spells to heals (both in HP and SP). The SP cost for the staff's skills are hefty but not as much as wand.
Still intrigued? Great, now what you want to know is "Why choose wand or staff over the other weapons?" Well I do have a few points for that.
- Why Choose Wand?
-It is a range weapon (Getting up close = bad)
-Wide variety of spells (a spell for every situation)
-Single target spells are homing
-Appearance of different elemental skills are frequent
-Higher survivability due to playstyle
-Nature at your fingertips!
- Why Choose Staff?
-You can Heal other people
-You can restore SP to other people
-You can resurrect other people???
-You can heal yourself without using Nigiri
-All Evil and Undead fall for your holy attacks
-^Because of the above, people will love you :3
"I might not have a med-school degree, but when you get shot you'll be happy I'm here."
-Dr. Zed
Now another question you may have is, "But Mariah, the bow is pretty much the wand in every way possible, but better! Why choose wand?" For a long while, I thought of an appropriate answer and here it is.
"Yes after running many parties with bow users I have to agree that the bow is superior to the wand in damage while not sacrificing survivability. Their AOE spells are also easier to handle than the wands, but why did I still use the wand? It is my hybridization of the wand and staff. When training the stats for them, their bonus effects complement each other perfectly. You may not deal as much damage as everyone, nor will you be healing as much as pure healers. What you get instead is one versatile magical girl (or guy) that can adapt and survive in many situations."
After combining the two magical weapons, you get the wand/staff hybrid!
- Pros
-All your attacks are ranged
-Variety of spells for each situation
-Able to self-heal using your own MP
-Able to restore HP & SP to others
-Moderately large MP pool
-SP reduction for wand and staff spells!
-Moderate SP recovery
-Magic defense for those pesky lamps (and Ahriman)
Cons
-Wand spells cost A LOT of SP (NOT staff spells, just wand spells)
-Mediocre damage
-Worry more about weapon breaking
Now that you have read the Terms & Conditions of the Contract, are you ready to sign it? Good! Let's proceed with the inauguration!
Creating your new you (character) 2.0.0.0
After forming the contract(logging into the game and making a new character), you will be taken into a menu which will allow you to customize your appearance, personality, and battlecry! However you aren't just any magical girl (or guy), you also have your regular life to attend to. Your appearances won't matter much, but your personality does. You see, those who have a high affinity for the magical arts tend to be kinder than many Oni. However those who are Cautious or Reliable have some affinity for magic but not as much as being kind.
If you do decide to use the magical arts as your primary problem solver, I would suggest choosing the "Kind" personality in order to get a slight head start. The "Kind" personality starts off with its Wisdom and Mind stats at 7, Where the other personalities start off lower. HOWEVER, you can still choose all the other personalities and still use wands and staff effectively.
Your trusty spells 3.0.0.0
The one thing I love about this game are the sheer amount of a combination of spells that can appear in a weapon. It makes every weapon unique and dungeons worth grinding for the "perfect" weapon. What this means for you would be the perfect wand with the best combination of spells that make it adaptable to every situation.
Now unlike many pure stat builds, you are a hybrid that uses wands and staffs. Thus it is normal for two of your weapon slots to be wands, while the remaining two would be staffs. This is the most versatile setup for you, especially if you unsure whether your party needs more healers or damage dealers. However if your party explicitly says they have enough damage dealers or if your healer is good enough, you may offset your weapon setup with an extra wand or staff.
Now onto spells, the thing that makes magical girls (and guys) live for! Here are some wand spells and their "upgrades" to look out for:
Wands
Spell name/upgraded name (level when they change name)
Single Target spells
-Fireball/Firestrike (III)
-Ice ball/Frost blow
-Lightning ball/Lightning blast
Area-Of-Effect (AOE) spells
-Poison cloud
-Ice bolt/Ice glaive (V)
-Earth spike/Earth glaive (V)
-Lightning Strike/Call Lightning (V)
These are the spells which I think are suitable for any magical girl (or guy) to have without being frustrated. Also please note I have not obtained all the spells or any Ougi in game so there may be a really good spell that is not on the list. It is not because I found it bad, it maybe because I have not obtained and used it yet so I can not judge its worthiness.
Time for a bit more details on each spell and why I believe they are good.
Fireball/Firestrike
This is your bread & butter skill. Have it, use it, train with it, and love it. The Fireball is a single target skill with good damage (and it helps that most enemy's weakness is Fire), low cooldown and SP cost, good range, good spell velocity, and exceptional homing. This spell can be used against anything if you are too unsure of the enemy's weakness or best method of damage.
Fighting a boss? Use Fireball.
Entered a room with only three mobs? Fireball them all.
What if I can't one shot them with Fireball? Use Fireball anyways.
But I'm fighting stickys, which are clearly weak against ice! If you aren't too stingy about SP or durability, use Ice ball...followed by Fireball.
Another great thing about Fireball (and most single target spells) is its low casting speed. It takes roughly 0.5 sec (maybe less) to cast it. This allows you to kite an enemy infinitely until you run out of SP. As long as the enemy stays within the Fireball's range, you can constantly damage them without them hitting you ever!
So why Fireball? Why not Ice ball, Lightning ball, or Kamitachi? I will get to the reasons for it below.
Ice ball/Frost blow
Like the Fireball, the Ice ball is a single target damage spell with good range, low SP cost, exceptional homing capability, and provides a possibility to freeze the enemy in place for a few seconds. However that's where the similarities end. Unlike the Fireball, the Ice ball deals slightly less damage than it, has a slow spell velocity,longer cooldown, and some wonky hitbox mechanics. What I mean by wonky hitbox mechanics is that when the spell hits the enemy, it might not even register it!
Besides it doing Ice elemental damage, it is inferior to Fireball in many ways. The Fireball will out DPS the Ice ball in all competitions (disregarding SP cost and durability usage). However I believe that this should still be used whenever you want to increase your DPS against an enemy: just alternate between Fireball and Ice ball.
Lightning ball/Lightning blast
The Lightning ball is rated between the Fireball and Ice ball. It matches the stats of the Ice ball but has working hitbox mechanics and the ability to "shock" the enemy (they won't be able to attack for a few seconds). It still won't be able to defeat the Fireball in DPS but it is much more reliable than Ice ball. This spell should be used instead of Ice ball to maximize your DPS against enemies with no weakness to Ice.
Kamitachi/???
This spell has the same stats as Lightning ball, but has something that caused a considerable amount of distress when I used it: it has mediocre homing! Unlike the Fireball (which immediately follows the target like a QB sniffing out a new magical girl), the Kamitachi follows a boomerang arc which starts wherever your character is facing. The arc also has a limit on how big it can be.
This mechanic isn't too bad when you and your target are facing each other while standing still. However when you are running for your dear life from the boss who wants a taste of you, finding time to face him would only give him the advantage of closing the gap between you. Also because of the boomerang arc, if the boss suddenly rushed up into your face as soon as you cast Kamitachi, the spell would fly overhead the boss, missing it completely!
Overall, I would not suggest using this spell at all due to its projectile path, making much harder for a hit and run tactic.
Bubble strike, Spiraling Winds, others
I would not recommend using them ever. Some spells have an animation time where they deal damage after their animation sequence, but their locations are fixed on the target's location at the start of the animation. This makes hitting moving targets virtually impossible (ok, it's not impossible, but a massive headache).
Others like Spiraling Winds don't deal as much damage for their SP cost.
Now that we've covered the single target spells, time for the wand user's pride-and-joy: AOE spells!
Poison Cloud
The first AOE spell you will probably obtain in Onigashima. It is a spell that casts a cloud of poison in a circle around you. It has a moderate SP cost, cooldown, and casting speed. Increasing its level probably increases the circle's radius. This cloud of poison hits three times, stunlocking the enemy with each hit and dealing moderate damage in total. Unfortunately after the spell has been casted, any enemies that were not in the cloud but walk into it after will not take damage.
While this does have a lot of potential, the requirement of being in such close proximity to your enemies makes this an extremely risky spell to use. An ideal situation would be a group of enemies chasing after your partner and you position yourself in the crowd. This would allow you to pull off the spell without being hit immediately afterwards. The normal situation would be a group of enemies chasing after you. If you still want to jump in the middle of that group of fangirls (yokai), then prepare to get mauled.
Ice bolt/Ice glaive
One of the many AOE spells you should look for and be proud of. This is a spell where after a casting animation, you summon an ice spike from underneath, piercing any enemies three times within a circle at a certain range. Upgrading it from Ice bolt to Ice glaive adds up to 2 additional ice spikes adjacent to your original one, thus vastly increasing the area of effect. It has the highest SP cost of all AOE spells, long cooldown, moderate casting time, range, and damage.
Now here's a thing about this spell. Ice bolt is not that special at low levels since it only summons one spike. However from rank 4 (IV), the ice spike doubles to summoning two spikes, effectively doubling the area. Once it is rank (V) and beyond, Ice bolt changes its name to Ice glaive and eventually adds another extra spike, totaling it to three ice spikes. The three ice spikes vastly increases the AOE of you spell, making it excellent at crowd control.
The ice spikes are positioned in a way that allows you to hit mobs to the left or right of your reticule. Have you noticed when you hold your right mouse button down, this blue holographic cylinder appears around you? That represents the range of you spell. Now what I would like to say that keeping enemies inside the cylinder means your spells will hit them and staying outside would mean you will miss, but it isn't that simple. How is this relevant to Ice bolt/glaive?
Regardless of the locked enemy's position, Ice bolt/glaive would always be cast at the border of the cylinder in the direction of your reticule. This means you have to position yourself so that the enemy is just touching the border of the cylinder in order for the spell to hit. If the enemy is moving, then you have to do a little bit of extrapolation in order to hit.
So why bother use this spell? One reason, crowd control. It isn't uncommon to be fighting over eight enemies at a time and casting single target spells on each once would be a waste of SP, durability, and time. Using Ice bolt/Ice glaive would allow you essentially damage multiple enemies with a flat SP and durability cost. With a bit of skill and enough damage, you can one-shot multiple enemies, thus saving you the pain of casting Fireball over and over and over again. Note this reason applies to all AOE spells.
Earth spike/ Earth glaive
Another powerful and versatile AOE spell that should be in every magical girl's (or guy's) spell book. The Earth spike has roughly the same casting speed, cooldown, and damage as the Ice bolt/Ice glaive. However, the Earth spike/Earth glaive costs less SP than Ice bolt/Ice glaive. Also the spell travels from a line in front of you. That means the first spike will rise in front of you and propagate foward in a line. Evolving the skill will add additional spikes to the spell, increasing the line length.
Why is this good? Unlike the Ice glaive, you don't have to worry about positioning the enemy at the cylinder's edge. Since the spell hits in a line in the direction of your reticule, you just have to pack the enemies in as tightly as possible before you unleash hell onto them. The only bad thing about this linear attack is that you do more damage if the enemy is around the halfpoint of the line due to the spike's overlapping hitboxes. This also means the enemies will be closer to you than if you were casting Ice glaive, so be careful!
Lightning strike/Call Lightning
The exact same as Earth spike/Earth glaive except it does lightning damage. You can use this the exact same way as you would use Earth Glaive.
Aqua Geyser, Darkness Pillar, Arrow Flock
These are fixed AOE spells which hit in a circle at the edge of the holographic cylinder, similar to Ice bolt III and below. However when upgraded, the radius only gets bigger. While they are not as good as Earth or Ice glaive, they can still be used against extremely packed enemies.
Staff
Spell name
Healing Spells (HP & SP)
-Heal
-Cure
-First Aid
-Sanctuary
-Energy Ball
-Healing (AOE)
-Invigorate
Buffing Spells
-Unbreakble Aura
-Magic Shield
-Strike Boost
-Idaten's Grace
Offensive Spells
-Holy Light
-Holy Pillar
-Breath of Light
-Rolling Thunder
-Chase Blister
-Soul strike
*NOTE*: The healing spells have a minimum MIND stat requirement in order to properly use them. Although I don't have the specific numbers, the general notion is: You need (Spell's rank)x10 MIND in order to properly use the spell.
Ex. I have 36 MIND and I am trying to use a Rank IV Heal. The minimum MIND requirement for Rank IV Heal is 40 MIND (4x10=40). Since I have 36 MIND instead of 40 MIND, I won't be able to heal a lot per cast (~80HP per cast). However with a Rank III Heal (3x10=30) with a minimum requirement of 30 MIND, I would be able to make full use of it (>300HP per cast).
Heal
This is the main spell you would use to heal a person when their HP is less than 100%. It has a long range, moderate cooldown, low SP and durability consumption, and quick casting speed. It also heals a moderate amount of HP. This is the spell you should be spamming whenever your partner is hurt and if they aren't in an extremely dangerous situation (like aggro-ing a group of enemies or the boss).
Cure
There are times when your partner has taken a lot of damage so suddenly, leaving them with less than 50% HP. However all the enemies have their eyes on them, making it extremely hard for your partner to take a bite of Nigiri! Your heals won't be strong enough to bring him/her back to full strength...but your Cure will.
This spell is the big brother of Heal. It trades durability cost and cooldown time for more healing power. It heals roughly three times more than Heal but costs five times more durability. It has the power to bring your partner from the brink of death back to their energetic form so use it if the situation calls for it!
First Aid
Your own personal self heal. This spell has a low cooldown, low SP and durability cost, and also low healing power. It is not the best heal for yourself in comparison to Sanctuary or Energy Ball but it should still be brought into consideration when choosing a staff.
Sanctuary
A small ranged AOE spell. It has a high cooldown, moderately high SP cost, moderate durability cost, and semi-powerful healing power. However unlike every HP healing spell you come arross, this spell marks a small circle on the ground and if you are on the circle, you start healing in ticks. This means every second you stay on that circle, you heal a certain amount. While the numbers may not seem high, overtime the spell heals more for its SP cost than the single target heals. This spell is highly recommended whenever you want to heal your entire party after each run, but should be completely avoided when you want to heal the person aggro-ing the enemies. Trust me, the enemies will do more damage than your sanctuary can heal even if your partner is blocking.
Energy Ball
This is the best self heal for all situations. It has a moderate cooldown, SP and durability cost, and heals a little more than Heal. What is really great about this spell is when it is cast, a green ball will appear wherever you are aiming. This green ball will stay on the battlefield for a long time and all you need to do is walk into it to heal. What this means is if you need to heal, you can just cast Energy Ball and run right into it, all while running away from crazy Fan Yokais!
Healing
An AOE healing spell that hits all allies within a certain radius in one cast. It has a moderate cooldown, SP and durability cost, but low healing power. Really, this heals about as much as First Aid. It is an interesting healing spell but I will not recommend it at all.
Invigorate
This is the only spell that regenerates SP for your allies. It has moderate cooldown, SP and durability cost, and moderately long range. When casted on an ally, their SP starts regenerating in ticks. Remember Sanctuary and how it heals in ticks? Invigorate will heal a certain amount of SP depending on the rank per tick for ten ticks. An example would be if I had rank III Inivigorate and casted it on my partner, they would be regenerating 20SP per tick. After the full duration of Invigorate (10 ticks), they would have regenerated back 200SP (20 SP/tick x 10 ticks = 200 SP). For any self-respecting staff user, having invigorate would be a huge benefit to the team. Additionally when looking for a staff, you SHOULD have one staff with invigorate that you are actively using when partying with others.
)
. Let's grind for teamwork.. or not? 
. Looking for party to grind lv.90+ weapon. Whisp me IGN!-In hiatus for 2 days-
