Shoals Surfer
Posts: 270
Joined: Sunday, 23rd March 2014, 23:51
Monday, 20th November 2017, 14:57
Reduce rarity of wands of clouds/scattershot
Currently, wands of clouds and wands of scattershot have a weight of 2 when generating a random wand. Using objstat, this translates to an average of 1.5-1.6 wands per 3-rune game, including all portal vaults (raises to ~1.8 for Extended+Pan/Abyss/Zig). When generated, they get between 1 to 9 charges, with the average charges usually between 3-6 (it rolls random between 0 to 8 three times and takes the average, then adds one charge).
While this was probably fine while scrolls of recharging existed (finding recharging meant you had an option to get a few more uses out of these rare wands), they were recently removed in the wand stacking changes. Now these wands are simultaneously rare and have few uses, which doesn't quite match up with their utility. This will likely result in most players either hoarding the wands when found (afraid to use one of the few charges they have) or not bothering to pick them up in the first place past the early game (their effect is not powerful enough to compensate for the inventory spot compared to other items that are either more powerful or can be used more often/more generally).
I propose one of the following to adjust them to a version without scrolls of recharging:
1) Increase weight for scattershot and clouds to 4 (wand of enslavement's new weight), decrease weight for lightning and iceblast to 7 (both are currently at 9, which matches wand of flame). This would make them more commonly available by generating about 1-2 more wands per game on average (as well as improve the variety in available attack wands in a game) while still keeping the average charges per found wand low so they can't be heavily abused when found.
2) Increase charge value (the max potential charges per wand) from 9 to 18. This would double the average amount of charges per wand found, but keep them rare. Doing this would improve their value as rare items (like from vault rewards/acquirement) by making them have enough charges to actually be worth carrying around to use every now and then, instead of being ignored or hoarded until they are useless.
While this was probably fine while scrolls of recharging existed (finding recharging meant you had an option to get a few more uses out of these rare wands), they were recently removed in the wand stacking changes. Now these wands are simultaneously rare and have few uses, which doesn't quite match up with their utility. This will likely result in most players either hoarding the wands when found (afraid to use one of the few charges they have) or not bothering to pick them up in the first place past the early game (their effect is not powerful enough to compensate for the inventory spot compared to other items that are either more powerful or can be used more often/more generally).
I propose one of the following to adjust them to a version without scrolls of recharging:
1) Increase weight for scattershot and clouds to 4 (wand of enslavement's new weight), decrease weight for lightning and iceblast to 7 (both are currently at 9, which matches wand of flame). This would make them more commonly available by generating about 1-2 more wands per game on average (as well as improve the variety in available attack wands in a game) while still keeping the average charges per found wand low so they can't be heavily abused when found.
2) Increase charge value (the max potential charges per wand) from 9 to 18. This would double the average amount of charges per wand found, but keep them rare. Doing this would improve their value as rare items (like from vault rewards/acquirement) by making them have enough charges to actually be worth carrying around to use every now and then, instead of being ignored or hoarded until they are useless.