Rods explained!

[Tyrant]

To be completely honest, I didn't think the Rod tree could keep the original flavor but be reworked so well. During the first few levels, it promotes melee combat for Mage, and at later levels it really synergizes with the rest of Mage's kit by being able to gain charges off of casts, and then use casts after charging. Overall the tree feels great, and meshes well with how I feel the Mage should be played: High tech skill ceiling and requirement.

To help the flow of information, I thought I'd list some facts about how Rods work and what happens as Mage invests in the tree.

-Rod melee damage scales off of your melee modifier.
-Rod cast damage scales off of your intelligence. (At 100 Int I was hitting for roughly 44-47 with Magic Wand)
-Without investment into Rod 1, you must deal 4 damage with your Rod to gain 1 charge. (Melee, not casting)
-Investing into Rod 1 gives you 1 charge per 2 damage dealt.
-Investing into Rod 4 lets you gain charges off of damage dealt with spells. Should be the base 2 damage per 1 charge.

So for example, if you have Rod 4 and deal 6 damage with Eleclance, you'll gain 3 charges for your wand.

I've only seen 3 rods. There's the starting Magic Rod, there's a Spacing Rod, and a Wave Rod. There's at least this many specific Rods, maybe more, though I haven't found them. They all have some fairly unique stats, but all of them do 0-1 melee damage.

Magic Rod: Has 6 charges. Seems to do 3-8 damage per cast at base stats. Goes about 6 blocks. Main benefit of using this Rod is the superb range it offers over Eleclance. Slow travel speed, high cooldown, subpar damage, and a needed charge cost means that Eleclance is overall a better ability to use in CQC. It also seems to drift off course a tad after cast, as I've hit ceilings with it when I jump and cast.

Spacing Rod: 4 charges. roughly 3-8 damage at +1 int. Special thing about this Rod is that it shoots out two projectiles instead of just one. A lot of range, too, at about 16 blocks.

Wave Rod: 2 charges. 12-18 damage at base stats. Huge range, fast projectile speed. What makes it so powerful (and justifies it's absolutely crippling charge count) is the fact that the projectile goes through walls and enemies. Potential for huge damage per use, but obviously you'll be filling up frequently to keep this wand going.

As you invest into the Rod tree, you'll get some great tools: At level 2, you can charge up your wand for additional power at no extra cost. At level 3, you can pocket this charge by cancelling the attack. Next time you prepare to swing, it will already be fully charged so that you can instantly use a full charge rod attack.

At level 4, all of your spell damage counts towards charges, allowing you to build them more easily. At level 5, every time you hit an enemy with a melee attack, it will auto-fire the rod's spell. If this melee damage doesn't do enough to give you a charge, then you will use one charge while also doing this melee attack. Otherwise, you'll stay even or gain more charges.

At level 6, we get to be very disappointed. I assume this is a bug, but a full charged wand cast will also cast whatever spell you have at the ready as long as it's an offensive spell. Unfortunately, when it casts this spell, it seems to cast it "uncharged". Damage is absolutely awful and it wastes a spell charge of said spell. Unless you're using Frost Nova like this, you stand to gain nothing. Every spell you cast in this fashion will do 1 damage, burning spells don't apply fire, and the only spell that really does anything is Nova since it freezes. Shockwave only pops one spike! Do yourself a favor and avoid this upgrade until it's changed.

Overall, this change is great to see. I feel like it's a little weak, as Mage starts off with better damage and utility in the form of Nova and eleclance, and buffing enchant gives Mage great power with somg RNG (Boomerang + Missile) but it's still a cool addition with some room to improve. It shows a lot of promise with how Rods and spellcasting can mesh together, I plan to throw some suggestions together in a seperate thread.

If you have any questions, please ask!!! I can lab with ease and get results to you ASAP.

[Ordanen]

Berserkitis also doesn't seem to stop you from casting with the starting rod, probably shouldn't stop you from casting with the other two either.

Charge damage boots also synergize well.

[Tyrant]

Charge boots synergize EXTREMELY well! That damage boost with Rod 1 allows you to refill half your magic rod in one hit!

[jamesraylee]

How the heck did you get 100 int. You must be a beast at this game.

[Tyrant]

Hahaha, I wish I could say that. I will say I unlocked all the backgrounds legit, but when I want to test things to better understand mechanics I hack in some stats. High numbers are easy to work with and allow me to kill instantly/live forever so I can do what I want, be it finding gear for testing, testing rough damage ranges, seeing how the scaling works, etc. Getting 100 int legit probably isn't possible.

[Raff.run]

Nice explanation! Also, enchanting helps a lot on the first levels, because while you can't get extra charges by the enchant procs, the extra 3 damage from the shock helps between rod casts!

[jamesraylee]

Mind I ask how you hack into the stats? I'd like to do some experimentation myself.

[Tyrant]

Cheat Engine. Simple tool.

[Tyrant]

I didn't ever test charging Rods earlier, but just tinkering with it now shows that a full charged magic rod does roughly between 7 and 10 damage at base stats.