My third character I decided to give INT a go and I’ve been collecting and trying them as I progress. The more I use them, the more rooted my feelings become that they feel very “Spell-Sword” without the spell book or tome.
Spell books were something I’d requested a year ago so I’m pleased to play something akin to a Spell-Sword in Wicked. Melee makes the most sense in the game currently and the idea of an offhand spell book and melee weapon sounded like it’d fit thematically in Wicked quite well.
But that’s just it, Wands aren’t a spell book or tome, they’re clubs, and sickles, etc… it feels odd. I enjoy the new spells and poise damage discussion aside they’re fun weapons. However, I don’t think I’ll ever be comfortable calling them wands.
Lets just face it, the wands aren’t wands and I don’t even think wands make sense in Wicked at the moment, pure range just feels trivial when its working and unusable when it’s not. But we know we’re getting it in the future so I’ll wait to speak on the matter.
So back to Wands. I can’t identify what makes them Wands beyond the name. They don’t look like wands, they’re melee weapons that happen to have elemental effects in their attack chain and give you access to Wand specific runes. That’s it, right?
Observations aside I think “Wands” should be moved to the offhand in the form of a spell-book or tome and imbue one handed weapons with new attack strings. Thematically I think it fits the game better. The runes would be slotted into the offhand and your main hand could have a unique move set based on each offhand “wand” (spell-book). You could also do it for every one hander but I’d be delighted with either options.
I believe this paves the way for Staffs to be more ranged focused as a Caster centered weapon.
agreed, wands/staff need a rework, especially the running animation with staff, it’s terrible(the walking animation, on the other hand, is amazingly designed and made) – a staff should not weigh 100kg where you need to carry it that way, it’s not elegant and it doesn’t remind of mages.
Also can we make it so you’re actually casters instead of wannabe mages.
Like, if you’re holding a wand/staff, your main attack should be from distance casting, not jumping in and bonking mobs.
Occasionally, you could go melee but for the bulk of it, combat for wand/staff should revolve around casting spells from distance. Otherwise might as well make every class a melee class.
used to be a GS enjoyer on EA launch, but decided to give wands/staff a go, getting heavily disappointed by the design.
I also want to point out that while there’re many weapons in the game, let’s be honest – many of them either have your average slash & hack animations, just generic, or they have bland animations that you don’t wanna try out, yes I’m talking about single-handed axes and clubs. I also think spears deserve better movesets.
For 2h weapons, some of these animations are overly emphasizing the weight of the weapon, it takes 3 seconds for the first attack to wind-up and the damages are not even that impressive, can we get these long anticipation tuned?
Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE the animation design in this game, can’t get over it, too much fun. I just hope every weapon has some attraction to it, for now it’s mostly you have your best few weapons out of every genre, others you’re just like whatever cuz of the movesets, go to eleanor, extract the interesting Runes and you’re out.
Most weapons in each category have different reaches, move-sets and damage amplifiers within the set. The gauntlets that I’ve tested are distinct in their dash attacks, interruption, speed and reach.
A lot of weapons are ‘sleeper build’. I’ve tried out most weapons in the game and there are plenty of weapons that have terrible and sluggish regular moveset but really fast and strong charge attack or/and great combo after dodging/sprinting. Or other way around. Although i do find some weapons(one hand axes may come to mind) feel bad to use overall, most weapons have at least one or 2 really good moves that makes them worth choosing over the others. One hand clubs are the better weapons i’ve played. They buffed the stance damage a ton and some clubs have so fast and smooth movesets that you can slap most enemies to death without ever getting hit. There’s also one club with sluggish regular attack, but its charge attack is really fast and deals a ton of damage and dash/sprint combo also is really nice. Maybe some weapons need a bit smoother moves but i was surprised to learn how different move combos are there and how almost no weapon feel the same
How are they gonna make them ranged attacks if all range attacks require focus? If even bows currently use focus for their generic shoot arrow skill, then I don’t think wands and staves would be using basic range attacks if they also would be using focus as well.
Unless they make a basic, offensive projectilelike a Glintstone Pebble-type attack that doesn’t use focus as their primary attack, I don’t see any changes being made to fit a “pure” mage weapon
I think the current wand design fits wicked very well, just not th presentation calling a “club” a wand and so forth.
In addition if we know bow is going to 2H then having staff be the magical counterpart makes a lot of sense to me. Not that all staffs need to be ranged, we could have some were you have melee strings still as well.
gauntlets are good, now try some of the great hammer/great swords, single handed axe and clubs, I just hope they can give same amount of love to each weapon so they offer their own charm.
I think they’re gonna make it so the basic casting & bow shooting uses stamina instead of focus in Patch 1, but it’s just a start, eventually they wanna make sure real ranged classes can be a thing.
now that you put into words, it made me giggle…
we are basically slapping foes w/ sticks to get focus and then unleash hell (in form of runes)… it’s kinda silly, but also funny… XD
but yeah, much like Mahler talked about rework of bows and whatnot, a rework of “wands” would be nice too… I like the tome Idea… it would also make for a very different type of weapon.. being a caster would make more sense to have a larger number of runes, specially considering the “basic runes consuming stamina to generate focus” talk…
not all wands play like that, you guys might need to try out more wands. Molten Clutch is a perfect example
not to mention their completely busted, if not outright deranged runes
Not all wands play like that wasn’t the point I’m trying to make, and an off case certainly doesn’t right the irregularities of the others.
It’s my personal opinion that the weapons don’t fit a thematic identity so I thought it would be cool if they had moved to the offhand and augmented how your 1H fights. That’s all.
Also fun and balanced aren’t the same thing. I can’t point at anything in the combat at the players disposal atm and think to myself, yeah this is perfect as is…
Edit:
wait that’s a lie. Scream most balanced rune in the game lmao.
I’ll be 1st to admit it, haven’t put as much time in this game as many peeps here, but then again I did relate to what BowUser said… so in my mind is safe to assume the average player is likely to experience the same…
Also, as BowUser perfectly put: fun and balanced are not necessarily the same… and surely not mutually exclusive either, I might add…
For most of the wands, I think the animations and sounds could just be reworked into very short range spells. It’d fix the feel of the weapons without changing the balance too much.
However… I want to keep the sickles, and I also want more sickles. Also, hard yes to off-hand spell books, because I want a grimoire&sickle build.
Yea I agree. Wands do feel off. Wands should be very light magic casting devices, but right now they behave like clubs. They’re slower than most one-handed swords.
I also think the idea of an offhand ‘spellbook’ for people that want to play spellswords would be absolutely amazing. You could pair it with any one handed weapon. That would definitely be my most desired ‘class’.
I also agree about staves and wands should really have a ‘basic cast’. Either instead of, or in addition to the melee. I’m also down for the idea of having some staves have melee combos and some having casting combos.