Hello everyone!

I just got my first rivalate wand and am planning to affix it into 7-slot soon. I'm planning on using these augments:

There's still 1 more slot left, and I'm wondering whether it's better to add:

• S4: Photon V Adaptation (Improves natural and active PP recovery and reduces PP consumption based on maximum PP) because Etoile's wand PAs are PP hungry, or
• S5: Skillful Adept Will (Increases critical hit rate by 20%. Critical hits will deal an additional 2% damage and recover 1% of the damage dealt as HP) because of that nice crit rate

Or I can ditch sentence triple and add both of them.

Also, I'm wondering if the inherent rivalate wand s5: steadfast harpoon is worth it? It only increases potency by 2% and maybe the shockwave will help a little in restoring PP.

And I'm not going for 8-slot because no.

Wand on Etoile Main isn't used for bossing, period. (Even if it has a gravity well PA.) Augments don't really matter on it. You'll only be using Wand on groups of enemies for content like seasonals and the level-up quests (Castrum/Quest Points) / quest point farming.

The only thing I'd suggest is not to waste too much money on it. Whatever you feel is good enough on an Etoile Wand, is good enough.

@Eldaykaa I'm never an expert of the game and also not a specialist on affixing, so just commenting on points I can.

• I'm not sure if future updates would affect your current plan, but seeing season 12 of mission pass having Luminfragment Emel as a reward, I think there's a good chance that we'll have the divide quest sometime in January. If divide quest comes, it's very likely that we'll have the next tier of weapons.
  Also, after the rather random enhancement boost campaign in December, I feel now it's pretty hard to predict when the next boost will come. I won't be surprised if they'll held another one in end of January. These factors might affect how big we invest on weapons now.

• If you have the Etoile skill Wand Augment Power Boost, you can make a tec wand instead. With that skill, a TEC 250 wand will work as a MEL 250 wand for a main class Etoile. Of course the damage it will do is the same, but Grand Casting is much cheaper than Grand Might regardless of the ship, I guess.

• On S5: Skillful Adept Will (Rivalate Gunblade augment factor). As for critical rate, Etoile can have basic 5% + 50% from Perfect Attack Critical + 25% from Critical Strike (R) ring for a total of 75% critical rate. And Rivalate weapons themselves have potential to increase critical rate by 20%. So without the S5 augment, the wand can have 95% critical. The 20% from the S5 might be a bit excessive.
  The lifestealing part is also of little use for Etoile, leaving only 2% critical damage as an effective boost. If so, then a constant 2% damage bonus from the Rivalate Wand S5 (Steadfast Harpoon) will be better I think (still, I'm not perfectly sure if the damage bonus of Steadfast Harpoon is an unconditional one. Needs comments from experts to be sure).

• On S4: Photon V Adaptation (Atlas Partisan augment factor). The actual amount of the PP reduction of this augment is explained on the JP Swiki. According to this (rather free translation),
  When the PP is over 120, 1% bonus per every 10 PP over 120 will be given to the following three elements, PP restored when attacking, PP natural recovery and reduction to PP consumption (maximum of 30%). So if a player's total PP is 130, the augment grants 1% bonus to PP restored when attacking and PP natural recovery, the PP consumption is reduced by 1%. For total PP of 200 (a more likely case), the bonus will be 8% each. For the maximum 30% bonus, we'll need total PP of 420...