Crafting Wands Is Bludgeon bonus worth it?

I notice some other options when masterworking wands since I trained in the Bludgeon part of the crafting tree. These bonus attribute options say "on hit - gust " for example; does this mean that these are only bonuses when you actually physically hit your opponent with the wand?! And not when you cast a spell and hit with the spell?

If they are only when you physically hit with a wand, these extra "on hit" attributes seem useless, who hits opponents with a wand ?!

 

If you are getting an "Gust" option you have gem socketed the wand with a Air Gem. Since you have gem socketed it you know have some Air Spell buffs added to the table of skills to draw from. This is not bludgeon these are air skill.

 

Yes my original info was wrong BUT

Does "on hit" mean when you actually do a melee attack with the wand?

 

It is supposed to be yes when you hit but look more closely at the hints some are a % boost to the spells, and It has never been confirmed if it give a gust affect with each hit and if it is skill related or not.

Sorry but is another totally borked implementation. I have not seen a weapon that had them hit with a "gust" every time.

 

Thanks Weins,
frustrating when I spend 1000s of gold on materials for crafting and I cant confirm what things mean lol

For eg, when I'm crafting wands does "masterwork bludgeon skill" do anything for my wands?

 

My sword with on hit gust tries to gust everytime. I see the tornado graphic and 10% the creature I am fighting is knocked back.

With a wand I fear it is still on hit not on cast.

 

Who hits with a wand? Well, offhand wand is an option when you need better fizzle rates, and it does hit for damage while using offhand attack. Not the best, but useful, and likely more useful with an effect like this.

 

I cannot confirm this 100%, but I remember someone complaining that they leveled bludgeon MW to 50 and all the bonuses were intended for melee characters. So I don't think there are any specific masterworks for wands yet.

 

I was just testing something out with this, the "on hit" occurs when you land a melee hit. With that said, you can use the weapon in your offhand, and it will apply the "on hit" when you land an attack with your main hand. For example, I have a sword with +10% tremor, the +10% tremor occurs even when I'm just hitting an enemy with the spear in my main hand. So you don't have to hit with the wand, but it does have to be a melee attack for that "on hit" to be of any value to you.

 

On a side note really.... Wanda seem really out of place in the blungeon category. Here I will beat you over the head with this tiny little stick. Take that.

 

Yep. Wand/Staff should either have its own skill tree or lose the Bludgeon tag. It's confusing.

 

I NEVER use it; I think it is a waste of wand power. I prefer bonus of ability (str, dex or int), focus, health, etc. Just me.

 

Agree 100% on wand staff category.

 

Im HOPING this is comen n 23rd with the masterwork expansion.
And if not, it should be.

 

Wooden staves function more like polearms in skilled hands. What would be missing would be skills that require blades - like puncture armor.

 

I disagree with most on this one. I use bludgeon skill on my mage for crushing blow and would be disappointed to lose that.

It is just like playing a hybrid with quarterstaff in UO, akin to spell channeling. The alternative would be key-bind mid-combat unequip/reequip like before item props but that is way clumsier IMO.

 

As far as crafting goes: I get a bunch of cool USEFULL extra masterwork options for bows, but for wands its just not the same. We NEED a revamp/polish on master working wands.

 

Sounds like you aren't using the wand as a wand then. And that's the basic issue here with wands as bludgeon-tye weapons. When looking at the skills from the bludgeon-skill-tree and then looking at that redicilous twig, do you really think you can truely stun someone with that? Just to take an example... Well, I don't think that will work. It might work with a quarterstaff, but when looking at those mage-staffs... well... not really. Magestaves and wand are simply used completely different.
But now comes the complicated part: Certain quarterstaves, being bludgeon or polearm-type weapons, might still be used as mage-staves... like Gandalf the grey/white so brilliantly displayed in the Hobbit/Lord of the Ring-movies... The same is true for other kind of magical weapons, which might double as a magic focus for caster of any type.

So what we might need are three things:

1. Differentiate wands/magical staves from quaterstaves (without magical bonus) This could be easily done with classifying non-magical staves same as spear for example.
2. Different skills for using wands/staves as a magical focus and using staves as bludgon-weapons.
3. A Different set of enchantments used to power weapons as magical foci beside it's usual enchantment/masterworking capabilities. Masterworking on wands and magical staves should also be different than masterworking non-magical staves. Masterworking on any other kind of weapon should not have any kind of magical bonus, that's what the magical enchantment would be for.

That's how I can imagine to solve this little dilemma.

 

Actually I use a staff with maxed out spell damage specs and use primarily "as a wand." Though, I would say a wand too can make for a nasty bludgeon. If I ever attend a sotacon, i would be more than happy to demonstrate

I also use it for Parry, too. I honestly think both are plausibly realistic uses of a magical staff justifiable by any number of previous fantasy universes.

Spoiler

But seriously, they are fixing masterworking to give more options, so you are really solving a non-problem.

 

I recently started using a wand with the '15% Obsidian Arrow Damage' and could notice the difference right away. So there is at least one useful effect for wands.