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Anyone got a quick description of the different 13-star wands? There seem to be a bunch, and I'm not sure which to invest in. I looked at the pinned guide but a bunch of them aren't mentioned. I'm a Te/Fi, if that matters. Thanks!
I don't know the calculations for the newer ones. " Gravilios: At +30, it increases Ice Tech damage by 20%.
Caduceus: At +30, it increase Light Tech Damage by 17%.
Revolsio: At +30, increases Charged Tech Damage by 8%.
Without there abilities it would be,
Gravilios: ~1494 TEC
Caduceus: ~1489 TEC
Revolsio: ~1465 TEC " Other areas can be found here. https://forum.pso2.com/topic/1510/best-rod-for-force-tech/15?page=1
@ERICK001BC Those are Rods, not Wands.
@LunoMyr Here is the current list of Wands available on the NA server: https://pso2na.arks-visiphone.com/wiki/Wands_List
For all intents and purposes, the Nemesis and Slave Wands are the best at the moment since not only do they have great unconditional 17% damage multipliers (meaning they apply to your normal Melee Attack, your Photonic Fury bursts, and any Techs you use), they also have great defensive abilities (Nemesis has 40% damage reduction, and Slave has super armor).
Gix is a close second since it can build up a damage multiplier of 20%, but the problem is that the multiplier resets if you take damage.
Also of note, though not on the same level of the aforementioned, are the Fornis and Form. Fornis' potential mixed with the Wand Element Change Ring allows you to recover HP with every hit. Form shoots a MEL-Pwr based Ranged attack with every swing of the Wand and can be great, especially against Zondeel-ed mobs, but its lack of a damage multiplier leaves it lacking when compared to Nem/Slave/Gix.
@AndrlCh Thanks for all your great info! The Form Scythe seems fun, even if not ideal. Might have to start searching for one...
@AndrlCh said in Difference between 13-star wands?:
@ERICK001BC Those are Rods, not Wands.
@LunoMyr Here is the current list of Wands available on the NA server: https://pso2na.arks-visiphone.com/wiki/Wands_List
For all intents and purposes, the Nemesis and Slave Wands are the best at the moment since not only do they have great unconditional 17% damage multipliers (meaning they apply to your normal Melee Attack, your Photonic Fury bursts, and any Techs you use), they also have great defensive abilities (Nemesis has 40% damage reduction, and Slave has super armor).
Gix is a close second since it can build up a damage multiplier of 20%, but the problem is that the multiplier resets if you take damage.
Also of note, though not on the same level of the aforementioned, are the Fornis and Form. Fornis' potential mixed with the Wand Element Change Ring allows you to recover HP with every hit. Form shoots a MEL-Pwr based Ranged attack with every swing of the Wand and can be great, especially against Zondeel-ed mobs, but its lack of a damage multiplier leaves it lacking when compared to Nem/Slave/Gix.
At 35+ Fornis is barely behind Slave/Nem by only 1% in damage bonuses if you use it's special ability factor, and an essentially permanent ghetto megiverse that applies to you imo easily makes up that 1% in the sustain value it provides (and those extra features on the slave/nem potentials other than the damage bonus are meh as heck). It's also more economic, as everyone hard a giant hard on for slave nem and generally everything else is undervalued. Even if you're using Slave/Nem you should be using a wand element change ring anyway, so that's a negligible comparison.
Couple that with the special ability factors on slave/nem being ass, I'd honestly argue Fornis is equal to, and maybe in some cases "better" than slave/nem as a result.
@Zipzo I agree, my go-to mobbing wand is fornis with mars being my bossing mob. I use nemesis and slave to recover pp when necessary but by far i feel fornis is super undervalued. It keeps you alive and heals a pretty good amount.
What makes Slave/Nemesis better than Fornis and Mars respectively, is the fact that Nemesis/Slave weapons are unconditional. Their potential is always active, so no matter what you're hitting, the 17% is always there. On top of having higher raw damage on the weapon itself, there is absolutely no reason to use Fornis or Mars over Nemesis or Slave.
Fornis wand potential is only active against fire weak, lightning weak, and presumably light weak(if that's the element you're running on it). Mars potential is only active against bosses. Both have less raw attack than Nemesis.
It's clear what is the best option, but run whatever you want: gear is less important than player skill. Regardless of what weapon you choose to run, it is meaningless if you don't know how to fight effectively.
@Lapinoire The Fornis potential activates even when using a Wand Element Change ring, so it is really just a matter of making sure you have changed to the right element.*
*The potential was updated to take Element Change into account in late December 2018 where previously it only took into account the natural element of the weapon.
@Lapinoire said in Difference between 13-star wands?:
What makes Slave/Nemesis better than Fornis and Mars respectively, is the fact that Nemesis/Slave weapons are unconditional. Their potential is always active, so no matter what you're hitting, the 17% is always there. On top of having higher raw damage on the weapon itself, there is absolutely no reason to use Fornis or Mars over Nemesis or Slave.
Fornis wand potential is only active against fire weak, lightning weak, and presumably light weak(if that's the element you're running on it). Mars potential is only active against bosses. Both have less raw attack than Nemesis.
It's clear what is the best option, but run whatever you want: gear is less important than player skill. Regardless of what weapon you choose to run, it is meaningless if you don't know how to fight effectively.
For a "PSO2 Tryhard" you sure seem curiously unaware of Techters absolute mainly used ring...the alt wand element change.
It means we are always taking advantage of elemental weakness as long as you swap elements, which by extension, means Fornis potential is always active against any target. Fornis's potential is active against any enemy you are taking advantage of elemental weakness on. Coupled with an inherent ghetto megiverse you don't have to casr is what makes Fornis stand out. You don't know what it's like to lose that heal for hit until you've used it, and at +35 Fornis is only 1% behind Slave/Nem in damage bonuses, which is easily recouped by this utility.
Why do you think Form Scythe is so incredibly rare/expensive? That wand doesn't even have a damage bonuses potential at all but due to its potential is considered one of the best wands. So unconditional damage bonuses are not always everything.
@Zipzo said in Difference between 13-star wands?:
For a "PSO2 Tryhard" you sure seem curiously unaware of Techters absolute mainly used ring...the alt wand element change.
In 2018, there were better options for Wand, so Fornis wasn't really useful unless you had nothing better. Another Wand Element Change only came out last year in JP, and at that point, Fornis was not being used by anyone except those who did not have anything better. The fact that we have both of these now makes it viable, but still much worse.
@Zipzo said in Difference between 13-star wands?:
It means we are always taking advantage of elemental weakness as long as you swap elements, which by extension, means Fornis potential is always active against any target. Fornis's potential is active against any enemy you are taking advantage of elemental weakness on. Coupled with an inherent ghetto megiverse you don't have to casr is what makes Fornis stand out. You don't know what it's like to lose that heal for hit until you've used it, and at +35 Fornis is only 1% behind Slave/Nem in damage bonuses, which is easily recouped by this utility.
I know what it's like to lose that heal on hit, and I can tell you: it's not that much of a loss. 50 HP per hit is not that much, unless you're using multi hit attacks. With wandsmacks, you're essentially healing 80~100 HP per hit, in which case you can just quickly tap megiverse to heal full instead. Believe me, I know how useless this "ability" is, having made use of both Fornis and Atlas Gunslash S4 on JP. In relevant content, that 80~100 HP heal per hit is not going to matter when you take 300+ damage per hit. Either dump a megiverse to heal immediately, or just get good. Don't get hit by using Tech Charge Parry, or Nabarta type 0(when we get access to it), or simply step out. Promoting bad play is the last thing you want to do, unless you don't care about being casual.
@Zipzo said in Difference between 13-star wands?:
Why do you think Form Scythe is so incredibly rare/expensive? That wand doesn't even have a damage bonuses potential at all but due to its potential is considered one of the best wands. So unconditional damage bonuses are not always everything.
Don't make me laugh, look at the numbers below and be enlightened.
Fornis:
Form Scythe:
Nemesis Cross:
Value difference between Nemesis and Fornis:
Striking:
Technique:
Form Scythe: Don't even get me started on Form Scythe being a straight downgrade from Nemesis in every possible way. What happens when you fight a target who is not in melee range? You use techs. If you're using Techer/Hunter, you automatically lose more than 30% damage, on top of having no Technique damage multipliers. Techer/Fighter definitely works in this situation, but it's much less safe than Summoner sub. Braver Sub? Don't even bother.
It doesn't take a genius to look at the raw power difference between Nemesis/Slave compared to Fornis and Form and draw the same conclusion. But I guess your clouded eyes seems to think differently. If you were any bit a good techer, you wouldn't need Fornis' heal to stay alive. Especially not with Deband Toughness and Deband Cut. Heck, you don't even need A.Wand Element Change during a boss fight, where you would instead opt to use Tech Charge Parry. The only reason anyone would use Fornis is if they're a bad techer who gets hit constantly and needs the heal to stay alive. Form scythe is out of the question: you can't even farm it reliably, nor is it affordable for anyone but whales and greedy merchants.
Nemesis is, by far, the current best in slot wand, there is no disputing that. If you really aren't convinced that Nemesis Cross is the best in slot wand, I urge you to look at the numbers once more.
Your argument fell apart the moment you admitted that Fornis is only 1% weaker than Nemesis. Even though your calculation was far from correct, the fact that you can at least acknowledge that Fornis is weaker than Nemesis is, at the very least, a(small)step in the right direction.
200% is about 2/3rd's of your basic wand smack. Form Scythe Potential really is just adding a slightly weaker 3rd hit. In many respects, this multiplies your attack speed by 30% (not really, in exact terms, but hopefully you get the point).
Wand normals: 336%, 300%, 370% Explosions: 240% Form wave: 200%, 240%, 300%
So it's actually a net increase over explosion damage.
No matter what combination of weapons (released in NA) and modifiers you come up with, you can't beat this extra third hit. Even at it's weakest, it still sits at 776%. 910% at it's strongest.
Even the basic Element change ring would reach standard power at level 20. The alternate simply starts at standard power and doesn't get stronger. There's no way an effective techer would have ever passed these rings up, and at the time Fornis was stronger than Slave/Nemesis which were in the Old Type versions, and the OT versions had lackluster potentials as well. This argument doesn't really hold up.
I don't believe anyone made the argument that Fornis was better or stronger. Simply that it was more available for a cheaper price, and offers competitive levels of damage, a better price to performance ratio.
12 star units exist in the game, so if the argument is to use the highest end weapon and yet sacrificing wand element change in order to use Tech Parry, then I think this is an unreasonable suggestion to make. This ring allows you to not invest in yet more wands in order to hit elemental weaknesses, which is by far the biggest multiplier to damage in question here.
Fornis heal also isn't meant to be the tipping point between life and death. It's there so you don't have to waste time in healing yourself so the next big hit doesn't kill you outright. If that big hit is coming sooner rather than later, then maybe you do bother to heal yourself.
Even if you're not Te/Hu, you're still meant to try and wand smack as much as you can. Other options simply give you a better fallback to use techniques when it becomes harder to wand smack. In the future with Heavy Hammer and Safoie Type 0, chasing down enemies will become even easier.
So let me just lay all of these out for you real quick. This is tested on JP, with 0 affixes that contribute to the wand damage, so as not to stray from what we currently have in NA. Did Damage Tally practice on each of Form, Fornis, Nemesis, and here is the conclusion:
Hunter Sub- Strongest Wand: Form Scythe
Fighter Sub- Strongest Wand: Nemesis Cross
Summoner Sub- Strongest Wand: Nemesis Cross
In conclusion, Form Scythe is only the strongest on Hunter Sub. The downside is that you must always be hitting enemies with basic wand attacks. If you attack using techs, you're doing far less damage(over 30% less) than Nemesis, and even less than even Fornis. On top of Form Scythe being ridiculously rare on NA server, there is no point in investing, or even considering Form Scythe as an option.
The above screenshots were taken with no units equipped, no damage-related augments(yes, no Phrase Weak on Fornis wand: it'd still be weaker than both wands even with it), and A.Wand Element Change ring equipped. Techer, Hunter, Summoner, Fighter are all level 90, so there's no status difference outside of skill point investment.
Now, let me show the comparison of the two between NA and JP:
Both NA and JP sets of wands have identical power and potentials, so don't even start with "BUT THAT'S JP! IT'S DIFFERENT!". No, it's not. In more situations, including Phantom and Etoile sub, Nemesis is the best in slot, with Form only slightly outperforming it on Hunter sub. Fornis is 11% weaker than Nemesis in all situations, and isn't much cheaper than Nemesis. Go all the way and invest in Nemesis, instead of wasting money on Fornis, or trying to get Form. There is no point.
The prices for Fornis and Nemesis aren't so far apart, that Fornis would be the best option. Ship 3, I can see people hesitating because it's 3 million for an 11% consistent power difference, but Ship 1 and Ship 2 is a definite no-brainer.
I saw this thread late and I was going to comment, but you pretty much did all the math and comparisons before I could breathe.
Very good read, and it's refreshing to see another well-informed Te here.
Form is only good for Hunter sub, the only reason why Form doesn't appear in the Visiphone is because 1) it's stupid rare 2) even if it wasn't rare, it would still be a high-in-demamd Wand since most people are playing TeHu.
Like Lapinoire has said, if you can't survive on Te without Fornis, then that's a big problem with your own gameplay. Megiverse isn't that hard to tap once and swing once to Regen your HP to full.
Now that i've posted visual evidence on top of numerical evidence, it's time to respond to @Thrashinuva ! Before I begin, i'd just like to mention... where in my original post in this thread did I mention knowing, or not knowing of A.Wand Element Change's existence? Seemingly @Thrashinuva and @Zipzo assumed that I wasn't aware it existed. My post was made in assumption that the player is hitting an enemy's elemental weakness, or was that so difficult to infer?
@Thrashinuva said in Difference between 13-star wands?:
200% is about 2/3rd's of your basic wand smack. Form Scythe Potential really is just adding a slightly weaker 3rd hit. In many respects, this multiplies your attack speed by 30% (not really, in exact terms, but hopefully you get the point).
Gosh, it's like you think I didn't know this.
@Thrashinuva said in Difference between 13-star wands?:
Wand normals: 336%, 300%, 370% Explosions: 240% Form wave: 200%, 240%, 300%
Gosh, it's like I didn't mention that or anything in my second post! Totally didn't!
@Thrashinuva said in Difference between 13-star wands?:
So it's actually a net increase over explosion damage.
Obviously.
@Thrashinuva said in Difference between 13-star wands?:
No matter what combination of weapons (released in NA) and modifiers you come up with, you can't beat this extra third hit. Even at it's weakest, it still sits at 776%. 910% at it's strongest.
Except in the post I made above, Nemesis clearly beats Form, excluding Hunter sub. Maybe not by much, but it still beat Form. I guess no matter what "combination of weapons and modifiers I come up with", Form is still unbeatable, right?
@Thrashinuva said in Difference between 13-star wands?:
Even the basic Element change ring would reach standard power at level 20. The alternate simply starts at standard power and doesn't get stronger. There's no way an effective techer would have ever passed these rings up, and at the time Fornis was stronger than Slave/Nemesis which were in the Old Type versions, and the OT versions had lackluster potentials as well. This argument doesn't really hold up.
Gosh, it's like you think OT Nemesis and Slave exist in NA or something, when it was made clear that NA has no OT weapons! At the time, Fornis was stronger than Nemesis and Slave OT, but Atlas already existed, was far easier to get, and is infinitely better than Fornis due to its S4. Your point?
@Thrashinuva said in Difference between 13-star wands?:
I don't believe anyone made the argument that Fornis was better or stronger. Simply that it was more available for a cheaper price, and offers competitive levels of damage, a better price to performance ratio.
Not much cheaper, and 11% weaker than Nemesis. I guess paying similar price for an inferior wand is acceptable, yeah? My point was to emphasize that in 99% of situations, Nemesis is currently the best in slot wand. There is no refuting that fact.
@Thrashinuva said in Difference between 13-star wands?:
12 star units exist in the game, so if the argument is to use the highest end weapon and yet sacrificing wand element change in order to use Tech Parry, then I think this is an unreasonable suggestion to make. This ring allows you to not invest in yet more wands in order to hit elemental weaknesses, which is by far the biggest multiplier to damage in question here.
Was Unit Skill addition finally added? I don't recall being able to do it, even with Ray units in possession.
@Thrashinuva said in Difference between 13-star wands?:
Fornis heal also isn't meant to be the tipping point between life and death. It's there so you don't have to waste time in healing yourself so the next big hit doesn't kill you outright. If that big hit is coming sooner rather than later, then maybe you do bother to heal yourself.
Uncharged megiverse. Point countered. Bonus points if you use uncharged grants for an instant 1000+ heal. Can be done in 1 second.
@Thrashinuva said in Difference between 13-star wands?:
Even if you're not Te/Hu, you're still meant to try and wand smack as much as you can. Other options simply give you a better fallback to use techniques when it becomes harder to wand smack. In the future with Heavy Hammer and Safoie Type 0, chasing down enemies will become even easier.
What happens when you're fighting Deus? Dragon? Persona(First/Second phase)? When there are points where you can't reliably hit the boss? No amount of Safoie type 0, Ilzonde, or Heavy Hammer will position you well enough to outperform a techer standing still casting Grants, Ramegid, Ilbarta, etc.
Again, what sets Nemesis worlds apart from both Fornis and Form is its utility, and raw power. Nemesis allows you to cast techs en masse, and in case you somehow get hit, it reduces the next incoming attack's damage by 60%, meaning you WILL survive, get up, and heal off with a megiverse into grants(or wand smack).
@Lapinoire Quite smug aren't you? I didn't state certain things because I was confident you didn't know them. I stated them because you failed to. To put it nicely, relevant information was excluded, so I included it for anyone reading to be fully aware.
Information about OT weapons was included because you made statements specifically regarding the time frame of when those weapons were relevant on the JP server. Your points regarding this made absolutely no sense, with context or without it.
And it seems you're upset that I listed the Form Scythe wave values, because you already did. Don't be. It's merely listed together with other relevant information to make it easier to digest. This isn't your preconceived notion of me thinking "WHY DIDN'T YOU LIST THE VALUES". It's "Here's all of the relevant information in one small package".
Weapon values are fairly volatile at this point in time. Nemesis Cross at it's cheapest on Ship 02 is currently 4,093,950 as of the moment of typing this. Fornis is 2,205,000. The point is that these values are more than likely to go down at this point in time, rather than up, and yet they have gone up in relation to your post. Not by much, sure, but I'd say that Nemesis Cross being 3.1m is certainly a deal I haven't seen before now, and 6.8m on Ship 03 is more along the lines of what I'd expect. I paid way less than 2m for my Fornis, and I'd rather pay way less, because at this point I care more about what else I can buy with that extra few million meseta. My PSO2 NA account is hardly even a month old, you know? And there's a few months worth of backlog.
I actually don't know if Ring Skills on units were actually added or not. I got a tutorial pop up for it, but I don't personally value Ray units very highly so I haven't even attempted it.
Uncharged Megiverse is quite effective, and a waste of time if you don't need it.
Regarding your damage values, excluding the one case where you've admitted Form Scythe wins:
Fi sub
Form: 2,109,915
Nemesis: 2,156,353
This is a difference of less than 3 percent. Literally anything could tip the scales here. Your individual performance. Your crits. Something counting as Wise/Valiant. Anything.
Su sub
Form: 2,213,054
Nemesis: 2,329,515
This is a difference of about 5 percent. Really it's a wider difference, but have we really ventured that far to prove the difference is unmarred by RNG? I would say no. Maybe yes in a solo environment such as Rockbear practice, but in any other context it would be hard to make the argument.
What I can say is your argument regarding the convenience of falling back on techs is a real winner. I said as much before your retort. Your retort against Heavy Hammer/Safoie 0 is in response to me actually stating that it's true.
But riddle me this.
Someone used Critical Field and Blight Rounds. The boss is stunned momentarily. How high do you think your DPS can go to possibly make up for the boss moving a lot? Which wand would have better DPS in this situation exclusively?
Why is your Fornis value higher on Fi than it is on Su, when the other values are higher on Su than they are on Fi?
Damage is also just lower in general on NA right now. A difference of 3% is even smaller and even harder to prove. But don't worry, I know you already know that. I simply said it because it hasn't been said yet.
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