I was messing around with Bulwark a bit this morning and having a ton of fun quick-swapping on and off of it during the repeated short invulnerability phases lots of dungeon bosses have (especially cem).
However, I started to think about it and wands actually have 3 good quick-swap wands for brief downtime in fights:
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Bulwark The classic; best used like a weaker void blade, but you can less effeciently use it from up to ~4 tiles away.
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Soul’s Guidance A largely overlooked wand which has seen a little more attention recently. The least reliable of these options, but also probably the best of these for solo play thanks to not only damage over time, but a chance to curse. I’ve experimented with this one the least, so I’m a bit unsure of its potential
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Wand of Geb The sleeper. No one talks about this item, but it has the potential for some pretty insane burst damage. It fires a delayed 4k+ burst (16 ~250 damage shots that [I think] scale w/att) on your location on a short delay every 5s, perfect for quick-swapping in places like Osanc. Another note is that these shots boomerang, so you can do it especially early and still hit them all if timed well (or, if nothing else, you have two opportunities to hit the burst). For reference, without factoring attack, EP deals ~875 damage if all 10 shots hit. And you usually see balls deep wizards hit 2-3 shots on O3 before backing off*. A single burst from this wand should deal more [damage] than that.
This all being said, why do I never see these swapouts on wand classes in high-efficiency/ speed runs? None of these are especially hard to obtain (bulwark is as free as EP). EP is a fairly common swap, especially in Osanc, and it is well known that wand classes (namely summoner these days) can compete for top damage, so what gives? Am I missing something?
*I am still quite the novice when it comes to pre-EPing, but I’d like to do it more, and maybe practice some on prot priest.
