Something strange about wands

Yesterday in AQ20 I received the Antenna of Invigoration, a wand to replace my old Stormrager with. As usual when I get a new weapon, I first open my character sheet and see how much damage per second the old weapon does, before equipping the new weapon and comparing. So: Old wand, Stormrager, 62.7 dps nominal, but with all my bonuses an impressive 148.1 dps. New wand, Antenna of Invigoration, 71.6 dps nominal, with bonuses 140 dps. Huh?!? How can the wand which originally has 9 points more dps end up giving me 8 damage less per second?

Digging deeper I find the reason is that my bonus to wand damage is so large. From some items, but mostly due to my holy talent Spiritual Guidance, I have a large bonus of the "increases spell damage and healing" kind, for a total of +115 increase to spell damage. And this +115 is added *completely* to my wand damage, increasing both the minimum and the maximum damage of my wand by +115. So instead of doing 57 to 106 points of damage, Stormrager does 172 to 221 points of damage. And the Antenna gets upgraded from 80 - 149 to 195 - 264. But as the bonus is added to damage, and not to damage per second, the faster wand, Stormrager, gets the bonus every 1.3 seconds, while the Antenna only gets the bonus every 1.6 seconds, and ends up with less dps.

Some guild mate claims that it is only since patch 1.12 that the complete spell damage bonus is added to wand damage. And I've read, but didn't verify, that a bonus "to shadow damage" for example wouldn't be added to a wand dealing shadow damage. In any case, the effect is huge, especially for a holy priest. I have 240 of spirit unbuffed, so Spiritual Guidance alone adds +60 to my wand damage every 1.3 seconds. I think I should try to get more items that have a "increase spell damage and healing" bonus. Maybe try if the wizard oils are added to wand damage, that would be a nice boost of +30. And I should obviously favor faster wands over slower ones. But of course I'll keep the Antenna for groups and raids, it has the better bonuses when I'm just healing.
- posted by Tobold @ 7:02 AM Permanent Link