[3.9] Physical Conversion Bowyer | Wander [TS/LA/IS + Barrage] [KB + Power Siphon] [All Content]

^ full health Shaper Kill on my Synthesis Wander.
Not a rich Boy, so not THAT much invested.

It's not a phys Wander, but as this is the only maintained Thread I could find for non-mf Ranger Wanding, I posted it here.

Wanders are fine, KB is excellent, Barrage is shit. It deals okay damage, but is mechanically annoying if you intend to really Progress through the many stages of a character in a temp League, and not only instaphase Shaper on an already pimped out one.

The random spread of projectiles that gets worse with slower proj, which often is the best 5th or 6th link, requires you to stand closer than most melee Characters. On a char that, without additional Investment, can't really afford to do this. That said, I replaced Slower Proj with Energy Leech (which is Always on due to Blood Rage) to make Barrage a bit more bearable. Didnt see you mention that btw, how come? It's reliable 40% more damage for any Life Build that uses Bloodrage and has any amount of ES.
And btw, fuck Barrages Mana Cost. Actually had to take the full Essence Sap Cluster to maintain Mana.

Also, having no snappy movement skill option (Like e.g. whirling) as an escape Button makes it even more "meh".

So IMO the biggest benefit that 3.7 will bring wanders, besides passive powercreep, is going to be Instant movementskills (Flame Dash and the new Dash) and being able to Animation cancel out of Barrage with those. And easier accuracy is also great :D

That said, I have high hopes for the eventual Ranged Attack Patch. They showed that they can, and are willing to, make dedicated Attack/Spell centered weapon Base types with the new Staffs and Daggers in 3.7. I assume Wands will get that Treatment in the ranged Patch as well, which will be a decent boost to their popularity. Couple all of that with some new Singletarget Skill, Tree Buffs, new Support Gems (e.g. the teased weapon-type-specific ones) and I think it won't be all too long before we see Wanders become more Meta again.

I Hope you are prepared for an influx of (more or less stupid) questions and stuff once it comes to that, Enahkra :D

In the mean time, lets see how Abyss Jewels get nerfed for my Ele wander.
On the topic of phys vs Ele Wanders: I really dont care that much about what is BiS with mirrored Gear or without, I just like to Progress though the Game with a fun character. And Ele wanders with Piscators are insanely easy and fun to get started day 2 in a fresh League IMO, so I sticked with that (knowing that I would get enough life etc.)

That said, the added Mitigation from a ToH and balanced Wise Oak would surely help a LOT.

"

Guffinn wrote:

^ full health Shaper Kill on my Synthesis Wander.
Not a rich Boy, so not THAT much invested.

It's not a phys Wander, but as this is the only maintained Thread I could find for non-mf Ranger Wanding, I posted it here.

Wanders are fine, KB is excellent, Barrage is shit. It deals okay damage, but is mechanically annoying if you intend to really Progress through the many stages of a character in a temp League, and not only instaphase Shaper on an already pimped out one.

Nice setup + kill. I completely agree with your assessment. With the new melee changes, wanders are essentially more "melee" than melee builds, which is pretty ironic.

"

The random spread of projectiles that gets worse with slower proj, which often is the best 5th or 6th link, requires you to stand closer than most melee Characters. On a char that, without additional Investment, can't really afford to do this. That said, I replaced Slower Proj with Energy Leech (which is Always on due to Blood Rage) to make Barrage a bit more bearable. Didnt see you mention that btw, how come? It's reliable 40% more damage for any Life Build that uses Bloodrage and has any amount of ES.
And btw, fuck Barrages Mana Cost. Actually had to take the full Essence Sap Cluster to maintain Mana.

Good point ~ in addition to all that, energy leech has a slightly lower mana multiplier too which helps.

It wasn't mentioned in the guide because I didn't even think about this interaction. Thank you for bringing it to my attention, I will make sure to include it when I overhaul the guide for 3.7. Thanks again!

With how glassy wanders are, it felt better not using blood rage due to the degen, especially in vulnerability maps (when not using warding). But I haven't actually tested out this energy leech + blood rage interaction so that will probably change my preference.

"

Also, having no snappy movement skill option (Like e.g. whirling) as an escape Button makes it even more "meh".

Agreed. I recall Chris Wilson not being able to give a good reason for why wanders don't have access to shield charge. I get that you can't use a melee skill with wands, but it seems stupid given the context that spell builds can actively use it. If we had that it would make life a lot easier esp. with easier access to fortify.

"

So IMO the biggest benefit that 3.7 will bring wanders, besides passive powercreep, is going to be Instant movementskills (Flame Dash and the new Dash) and being able to Animation cancel out of Barrage with those. And easier accuracy is also great :D

The accuracy and animation cancel changes are awesome, but I think overall wanders will experience a significant regression in damage, so I guess more like "poweruncreep". We lose access to synthesized items, which is a huge loss, I think probably amounting to at least a ~20% loss of overall damage. This doesn't include the 30% reduction to ele flat on abyss jewels + flat life mod got nerfed so even less survivability. Ele wanders take a bigger hit for sure, but so do phys wanders to a lesser extent. Although I think with the removal of synthesis wand bases, it's probably going to be much harder to craft a phys wand than a comparable ele one. I really hope this flat damage nerf is compensated by barrage base damage increase...

"

That said, I have high hopes for the eventual Ranged Attack Patch. They showed that they can, and are willing to, make dedicated Attack/Spell centered weapon Base types with the new Staffs and Daggers in 3.7. I assume Wands will get that Treatment in the ranged Patch as well, which will be a decent boost to their popularity. Couple all of that with some new Singletarget Skill, Tree Buffs, new Support Gems (e.g. the teased weapon-type-specific ones) and I think it won't be all too long before we see Wanders become more Meta again.

Hopefully that happens sometime in the near future! :)

"

I Hope you are prepared for an influx of (more or less stupid) questions and stuff once it comes to that, Enahkra :D

I don't think I get asked dumb questions compared to those on the Queenliness guide. I make it clear that this build isn't really beginner-friendly. That being said, I feel like a lot of times people following this guide end up buying less than optimal gear for a premium price and don't end up with as good damage as I expected. Gearing a wander is pretty difficult compared to most other builds.

"

In the mean time, lets see how Abyss Jewels get nerfed for my Ele wander.
On the topic of phys vs Ele Wanders: I really dont care that much about what is BiS with mirrored Gear or without, I just like to Progress though the Game with a fun character. And Ele wanders with Piscators are insanely easy and fun to get started day 2 in a fresh League IMO, so I sticked with that (knowing that I would get enough life etc.)

That said, the added Mitigation from a ToH and balanced Wise Oak would surely help a LOT.

I don't really care that much either; I enjoy both types of wanding and they each have their advantages. Yeah ele wanders are much easier to start out with :) I would have written an ele wander guide if there hadn't already been so many posted on forums and virtually no phys wander ones :). Also, my overly wordy analysis was mostly directed towards those people who have little to no experience with wanding, let alone phys wanding or mirrored wanding but still make false claims on reddit and get massively upvoted lol.

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Enahkra wrote:

Nice setup + kill. I completely agree with your assessment. With the new melee changes, wanders are essentially more "melee" than melee builds, which is pretty ironic.

Thanks dude, was fun tinkering around :) With regards to the Setup for the kill: crafting/creating the Animate Guardian was also a big Joy :D I think for everyone that has 1 (ideally 2) free Sockets for bossing, it's a no-brainer to include these days. 50 Crit Multi, Free Cull, -9% to whichever Res you want, Fortify, and Curse on Hit if you desire so. At 30k HP, capped Res and 2.8k Regen he never got close to dying.

And yes, I really hope wanders pretty pitiful Bossing Playstyle gets adressed somehow in 3.8 or whenever the ranged stuff happens. It was quite ironic to hear from a Friend playing Tectonic Slam about how "good" I had it this League as a ranged char :D

"

Good point ~ in addition to all that, energy leech has a slightly lower mana multiplier too which helps.

It wasn't mentioned in the guide because I didn't even think about this interaction. Thank you for bringing it to my attention, I will make sure to include it when I overhaul the guide for 3.7. Thanks again!

With how glassy wanders are, it felt better not using blood rage due to the degen, especially in vulnerability maps (when not using warding). But I haven't actually tested out this energy leech + blood rage interaction so that will probably change my preference.

Cool to hear that I could add something of value. For anyone reading this and wondering: as a Life based Character with any amount of ES, your Blood Rage will Degen the ES incredibly quick. If you now slot in the Energy Leech Support, you will always be leeching ES when you're hitting (and a decent while after that) as your ES Leech can't outleech the BR Degen. This results in the 39/40% more Multiplier being always active.
This Interaction is pretty clearly working this way, but to be double sure I tested it on Jorgin (I think) who permanently stays an active target even when defeated and compared the Tooltip Numbers with all other conditional/on hit/on crit increases removed. And sure as hell: it works.

On the topic of Bloodrage while mapping: I actually didnt use it there. Like you, I also dont like the Degen that much in these cases. But if for whatever reason you stay at full ES, you still have a 24/25% more Multiplier. And if your ES took some Hit, you get the full multiplier. Even the smaller Multiplier is enough for all map bosses with our Power Levels. And I think the chance of occasionally dealing less damage than with slower proj while mapping gets offset by less Mana cost, a better Feeling Barrage, and more damage on big Bosses where you use BR.

Funnily enough, the Energy Leech Support also helps mitigate BRs Degen a bit in a Sense, as the amount of ES you leech does a small dent in the amount of Life you Degen. I'd say for any Life based character with some ES using BR for Bosses already, Energy Leech is a no-brainer to pick.

"

Agreed. I recall Chris Wilson not being able to give a good reason for why wanders don't have access to shield charge. I get that you can't use a melee skill with wands, but it seems stupid given the context that spell builds can actively use it. If we had that it would make life a lot easier esp. with easier access to fortify.

One can Dream. Maybe since SC uses Shield Damage now like Shield Throw, it can be used without a melee weapon. I doubt it tho, as it hardly will lose the melee tag. Remains to be seen I guess.

"

The accuracy and animation cancel changes are awesome, but I think overall wanders will experience a significant regression in damage, so I guess more like "poweruncreep". We lose access to synthesized items, which is a huge loss, I think probably amounting to at least a ~20% loss of overall damage. This doesn't include the 30% reduction to ele flat on abyss jewels + flat life mod got nerfed so even less survivability. Ele wanders take a bigger hit for sure, but so do phys wanders to a lesser extent. Although I think with the removal of synthesis wand bases, it's probably going to be much harder to craft a phys wand than a comparable ele one. I really hope this flat damage nerf is compensated by barrage base damage increase...

Yeah, losing Access to synth bases for 1 or 2 Leagues is obviously a huge Hit for everyone. And the Abyss Jewel nerf, while pretty deserved, is fucking rough.
That said, there's always bound to be some powercreep/passive Buffs over time. Lets see where wanders end up with the reworked Tree, accuracy, reworked Wand Nodes (teased today, but prolly just acc values), Legion Jewels, new Base damage Numbers like you said, etc. Don't wanna be too pessimistic before all the new stuff is really known, even though it looks pretty bad so far.

"

I don't think I get asked dumb questions compared to those on the Queenliness guide. I make it clear that this build isn't really beginner-friendly. That being said, I feel like a lot of times people following this guide end up buying less than optimal gear for a premium price and don't end up with as good damage as I expected. Gearing a wander is pretty difficult compared to most other builds.

That's awesome to hear. But If more people come, there will also be more people that don't wanna read an in-depth Guide, don't wanna tinker around in PoB, etc. and still expect awesome results :P At least that was my experience with a pretty in-depth and popular Reave/BF and later MS/FB Ascendant Guide that I maintained.

"

Also, my overly wordy analysis was mostly directed towards those people who have little to no experience with wanding, let alone phys wanding or mirrored wanding but still make false claims on reddit and get massively upvoted lol.

Oh, I didnt wanna take away anything from that Part. It's an awesome, and I think much needed, Analysis.
The Reddit Thing is bothering, ye. The amount of people I still see claiming Piscators is unbeatable is baffling, considering I made this Piscators in Synth:

and a simple multimodded Shaper Wand with only T1 Ele as extra Chaos Beats it handily.

But this is the nature of stuff like Reddit I guess. Posts with upvotes get upvoted more, and people seeing these assume they are automatically right. And Vice versa. Not in every case obviously, but mostly.

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Anyways, thanks for the very in depth reply! It's great to see that some people still harbour love for Wanding, despite its "lackluster" Performance when compared to other Options. Props for a great Guide!

Shield Charge

"

Can now be used with wands.

Here we go Boys!

E: no other Changes directly affecting wanders and their skills. ALL Abyss Jewel added damage Rolls nerfed by 30% at the top, even phys. And 40 Life is the new max.

Kinda crappy with a lack of Base damage compensation on Barrage and KB.
Idk, maybe look into Frenzy for Singletarget. Just with 3 Nodes on the Tree its got 30% more damage and 30 more AS alone, without the Charges taken into Account.

Didnt have time to look at the passive Tree yet, cause on mobile.

"

Guffinn wrote:

Shield Charge

"

Can now be used with wands.

Here we go Boys!

E: no other Changes directly affecting wanders and their skills. ALL Abyss Jewel added damage Rolls nerfed by 30% at the top, even phys. And 40 Life is the new max.

Kinda crappy with a lack of Base damage compensation on Barrage and KB.
Idk, maybe look into Frenzy for Singletarget.

Didnt have time to look at the passive Tree yet, cause on mobile.

I'm pretty happy with the shield charge changes, but disappointed that flat phys on jewels were nerfed too. I mean c'mon flat wand phys is already a pain in the ass to roll and it was only 8-12... :/ Loss of flat ele on jewels was partially compensated by higher flat ele roll on wands, but for phys wanders there was no compensation :(


Yeah I was thinking about frenzy too... may be able to compete with barrage if you stack enough frenzy charges... At least 6-7. And you could potentially drop Dying Sun and sub in another damage flask... and replace WED with LMP to compensate for proj loss for KB? Idk, maybe the damage loss would be too much for KB

"

Enahkra wrote:

I'm pretty happy with the shield charge changes, but disappointed that flat phys on jewels were nerfed too. I mean c'mon flat wand phys is already a pain in the ass to roll and it was only 8-12... :/ Loss of flat ele on jewels was partially compensated by higher flat ele roll on wands, but for phys wanders there was no compensation :(


Yeah I was thinking about frenzy too... may be able to compete with barrage if you stack enough frenzy charges... At least 6-7. And you could potentially drop Dying Sun and sub in another damage flask... and replace WED with LMP to compensate for proj loss for KB? Idk, maybe the damage loss would be too much for KB

Ye, I honestly didnt expect the flat phys Nerf to be to the same degree as flat Ele.

But didnt Jonathan say in the baeclast that they want to increased Base Damage/Effectiveness on ALL skills to compensate? I can only find changes for the melee stuff in that regard.


And yeah, what's so nice about Barrage+KB in that regard is that they both need added proj scaling. If Frenzy comes out on top, its gonna be hella awkward to scale KB for clear, Like you said. Also, If you drop the dying sun its gonna be fucking rough to balance Wise Oak.

Did you already take a look at the passive Tree? Any beneficial Changes?

E: also Wonder if the precision Gem is gonna be the same as the precision from Hyrris Truth. Flat Mana Reservation and all.

Seems Like alot of accuracy inc. wonder like you said Frenzy or maybe just move over to ele hit?

"

Guffinn wrote:

Ye, I honestly didnt expect the flat phys Nerf to be to the same degree as flat Ele.

But didnt Jonathan say in the baeclast that they want to increased Base Damage/Effectiveness on ALL skills to compensate? I can only find changes for the melee stuff in that regard.

That's what I thought too... but I guess they forgot about how dependent wanders are on barrage and how much this abyss jewel nerf affected us :/

"

And yeah, what's so nice about Barrage+KB in that regard is that they both need added proj scaling. If Frenzy comes out on top, its gonna be hella awkward to scale KB for clear, Like you said. Also, If you drop the dying sun its gonna be fucking rough to balance Wise Oak.

Yeah... almost forgot about the fire res part from Dying Sun :(

"

Did you already take a look at the passive Tree? Any beneficial Changes?

I think the changes were overall more beneficial to ele wanders. They buffed the wand cluster by replacing one of the 12% multi/30% crit chance nodes with 60% crit chance/30% multi (Disintegration). They also changed Fusillade to 15% attack speed, rather than %damage per power charge.

The weird part is that they took Tempest Blast (30% phys as extra light) from wanding cluster, nerfed it to 20% and moved it to Elder Power's location (previously 40% incr damage). Now Elder Power is part of the wanding cluster and grants 10% incr damage + chance to gain power charge on kill... which is ok I guess but not going to help that much for bossing situations...

Guess it makes sense since only phys wanders take elder power cluster anyway


I haven't look through everything yet but this seems to be the major change.

Overall seems like ele wanders got a buff to the tree, while phys wanders lost easy access to 30% phys as extra light...

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E: also Wonder if the precision Gem is gonna be the same as the precision from Hyrris Truth. Flat Mana Reservation and all.

I think so.

"

ssgtparker wrote:

Seems Like alot of accuracy inc. wonder like you said Frenzy or maybe just move over to ele hit?

Perhaps frenzy but probably not Ele Hit since it would require a completely different way to scale damage and you probably wouldn't be able to use KB with it effectively. Imo, KB is synonymous with wanding so idk if I would consider it a "wander" at that point.

I ask about ele hit cause iv seen a few trees pop up that don't seem to have to focus on alot of the nodes a reg wander would have to go for. Thing is im not so sure with wander if you look at a bow build if the gem slots are worth the loss. Like you said makes it another built.