regarding arcane wand...

[MightyLad]

it kinda sucks compared to other weapons.

idk what all im missing, but right out the gate, it does about 60 dps whereas just about every other weapons does about 100 dps. sure, it starts with arcane shot, and is generally not bad at afflicting debuffs with it being an explosive weapon, but that doesnt really warrant the damage exchange to me. especially for how slow it fires and how little ammo it has, the ONLY thing its really good for early on is shooting the ground while aiming midair.

dont get me wrong, its not quite what id call a bad weapon, its just that almost every other weapon tops it. if i wanted tick damage, id pick the flamethrower. if i wanted explosive coverage, id pick the rocket launcher or cluster launcher. if i wanted elemental in general, id pick the ice staff. if i just wanted to deal good standard damage, id pick literally anything other then the wand or flamethrower.

again, im not sure if im missing something, ive competed runs with it before on normal, but unless theres some sort of complicated trick im missing here that makes it way better, i feel my point stands. if it just did a little more damage to start, maybe like 5 to 10 more base damage, it would be fine how it is. still behind in damage compared to other weapons, but at least worth picking for its alternative benefits.

[Limdood]

Arcane wand is a weird weapon....it's a solid lower A, upper B tier kinda weapon (don't worry, I'll explain). It doesn't really stand on it's own. As you said, it struggles somewhat. As a slightly smaller explosion, lower damage, MUCH faster firing rocket launcher, it isn't BAD, but it doesn't really shine...

...except that it becomes unbelievably strong with a couple of shot pattern mods - arc shot, triple, X, split....and to a much lesser degree, scatter shot all help the arcane wand go from "meh" to "amazing." It's been my weapon of choice for a lot of my Ultra Chaos runs, and any time the key totem on home island gives me a shot pattern mod, I STRONGLY consider swapping over to it.

Arcane itself isn't great, but with it being explosive, and EACH projectile explosion applying it's own arcane stacks, it really does some work. Rocket launcher is pretty decent with the shot pattern mods too, but it takes a lot more work to get the fire rate and magazine to a reasonable level, and while arcane wand is by no means FAST firing, it's certainly fast enough when it's functioning as a shotgun grenade launcher.

So it's not good enough to be considered a great weapon on it's own....as in, a weapon that can be made to work almost no matter what you find. But it IS a weapon that, with a couple of fairly common, but specific, mods, becomes absolutely stellar.

[MightyLad]

I will definitely have to experiment then, because I don't recognize even half of those mentioned formations...

[Bug Guy]

echoing what LImdood said. If I get a shot pattern from totem I either pick rocket launcher or arcane wand (or sniper if Im feeling masochistic). It is also more reliable than flamethrower imo when it comes to DoT because flamethrowers fire damage is pretty negligible unless you get hot steam to compensate for it or ALOT of other elemental mods. Arcane wand does struggle against faraway airborne enemies, but like Limdood said, its best as a shotgun grenade launcher, so if youre comfortable playing in that closer range it can be pretty strong without too much work. I am also a fan of it on TRUC runs, though Burst Pistol is actually my favorite

[Sédrio]

Arcane Wand is absolutely not a bad weapon. It is very much a build focused weapon, just like how the Rocket launcher wants raw damage and additional projectiles over anything else, and the flamethrower wants attack speed and elemental damage. This Wand is a mix of the two, you will want additional projectiles and elemental damage.

With the weapons mentioned, from best to worst, I'd say it goes like: Ice Staff > Rocket Launcher > Arcane Wand > Flamethrower > Cluster Launcher.

It could also just be that the playstyle isn't for you. The reason I put Cluster Launcher so low is because of how much I hate it. It was the last Diamond weapon I got and I will never use it again lol

[MightyLad]

Originally posted by Sédrio:

It could also just be that the playstyle isn't for you. The reason I put Cluster Launcher so low is because of how much I hate it. It was the last Diamond weapon I got and I will never use it again lol

that sounds entirely fair, but tbh i kinda like the cluster launcher. i might even call it one of my favorites, even if i dont use it much. the only major flaw is its clip size and how quick it empty's, though it is kind of amusing to have a weapon in the game that spends about half as much time reloading as it does shooting!

as for the wand, im not fond of the "feast or famine" approach. if im banking on trying to find even a single projectile+ mod, im probably just out of challenges to tackle otherwise. like i said, its not a bad weapon, its just kind of a crapshot playstyle and im not fond of it. still, i think it deserves at least a small damage buff for the early game so the player is not completely screwed if they cant find an upgrade to increase the projectile count...

[Rideps]

It's also worth remembering that arcane, unlike fire, can crit. So even just on a pure "I'm starting with an element" scale, it does have some advantages based on what kind of build you might be feeling.

[MightyLad]

Originally posted by Rideps:

It's also worth remembering that arcane, unlike fire, can crit. So even just on a pure "I'm starting with an element" scale, it does have some advantages based on what kind of build you might be feeling.

i did not know arcane could crit, thats good to know.

on the other hand, fire wears off MUCH more slowly, and can build up stacks pretty much forever as long as you can keep inflicting it. so theres that...

[Casurin]

Originally posted by MightyLad:

Originally posted by Rideps:

It's also worth remembering that arcane, unlike fire, can crit. So even just on a pure "I'm starting with an element" scale, it does have some advantages based on what kind of build you might be feeling.

i did not know arcane could crit, thats good to know.

on the other hand, fire wears off MUCH more slowly, and can build up stacks pretty much forever as long as you can keep inflicting it. so theres that...

You can stack up arcane and it also benefits from poison and does not get undone by ice.

[Dopey Shepard]

From my personal findings, I can 100% tell you Arcane Wand is in the Top 5 weapons in Alpha version of the game, and Top 3 in beta (beta has certain guns rebalanced)

Ring of Arcane was added in beta, making Arcane Wand even stronger but it's still very good in Alpha

I feel like the issue is that people are very confused about the weapon

Run Skill Chests, and try fishing for AOE stuff like Triple/Split/X/Arc Shot
Run Targeting/Scatter shot for more AOE properties
You can try fishing out one of these key perks from Home Totems. I feel like there's no better weapon for a triple shot than arcane wand (yes, I know about rocket and sniper. Those are worse, especially in alpha)

It has good chances of activating chance-based mods, so run them too

Arcane Wand warrants lower DPS because it is AOE from the get-go, and has extra damage you will inflict on Elites/Bosses, there are actually worse weapons than Arcane Wand dealing with the latter damage-wise like garbage blade launcher

[MightyLad]

Originally posted by Casurin:

You can stack up arcane and it also benefits from poison and does not get undone by ice.

firstly, im not sure what poison does if im honest. i dont think ive ever even touched it. secondly, arcane loses a percentage of stacks every time it ticks, where as fire only loses a single stack per tick, about 5 per second i think. arcane does tick much slower, which does help, but with fire stacking indefinitely, it doesnt seem quite as appealing to me. as for being able to use it with ice, that is very valid, but in that case id just pick ice staff instead.

[Rideps]

Poison increases all incoming damage by a pretty decent amount (which is why it has capped numbers before Toxic now).

Arcane does the same amount of damage as the stack, though, unlike fire. It's still pretty lackluster until you have higher application, of course.

[MightyLad]

Originally posted by Rideps:

Poison increases all incoming damage by a pretty decent amount (which is why it has capped numbers before Toxic now).

Arcane does the same amount of damage as the stack, though, unlike fire. It's still pretty lackluster until you have higher application, of course.

definitely good to know. ill be sure to remember crits and poison when i play into arcane next time.

as for the argument, fire ticks more then fast enough to counter that fact. and, as mentioned, since it can stack literally infinitely as long as you can keep afflicting it, theres much more potential for it, especially against tougher targets. whereas arcane is probably only at its best when you really need its damage all dealt at once, and can supplement it with some form of boost to said damage, like as you said, crits and poison, or as everyone else has said, more projectiles and overall coverage. i suppose the arcane wand is the devs way to exercise that fact, but i think we can all agree its a "some assembly required" kind of weapon/strategy, as it just does NOT hold up on its own otherwise.

[Dopey Shepard]

I wouldn't be doing arcane wand with crits, if I were you. With a proper crit build you can 1 shot everything from afar, so fast-projectile fast-firing ballistic weapons should be your choice for that build, not arcane want with its slow fire speed and slow projectile speed

You'd need many levels of fast shot in order to turn your arcane wand into a rifle and why would you need to go through all that trouble when you can just pick a different gun?

[Casurin]

Fire is currently (in live and beta) too strong.
But a single tick of ice can ruin your stacks and it does not get the damage-boni like acrane does.
Random-shot for example not only applies debuffs you can not get any other way - but it also applies all debuffs so ice will kill your fire.

[Dopey Shepard]

Originally posted by Casurin:

Fire is currently (in live and beta) too strong.
But a single tick of ice can ruin your stacks and it does not get the damage-boni like acrane does.
Random-shot for example not only applies debuffs you can not get any other way - but it also applies all debuffs so ice will kill your fire.

yeah, I already told Noise that fire even with the recent 20% damage reduction is still too strong, maybe he will apply future nerfs to it

Random shot works as it is - it's not all that bad but ice and fire cancelling each other out may suck, but getting a Relic Ring of either Ice/Fire will nullify the opposing element so you can always add Random Shot to your arsenal