Is that a veteran reward in your hand, or are you just happy to see me?

The 33-Month Veteran Reward gives you a choice between a permanent Nemmy Staff and Blackwand.

What’s the dif?

Someone on the boards wrote:

The Blackwand will deal extra damage for users of Magic Origins. Assuming both these items are on par with Sands of Mu, the Blackwand in the hands of a Magic user might be dealing some tremendous damage.

Granted, this power won’t probably be very good in the late game, but it would definitely rock in the early game.

To which Castle replied:

Since this is going to come up a lot, here’s my thoughts on the trade off:

If you are Magic Origin, it’s a tough choice. Blackwand will do more damage than the Nemesis Staff, and it’s Negative Energy damage, rather than Smashing. On the other hand, the Nemesis Staff has a pretty good Disorient and Knockback, so offers better control.

If you are not magic origin, Blackwand does exactly the same damage as the Nemesis Staff, but has no secodary effect. Additionally, the Nemesis Staff has a 25% greater range, but costs more endurance per use.

And, of course, Blackwand is a Great Weap– oh, wait, already told that joke.

Now, evidently there’s all sorts of other debate about Sands of Mu and the Undead Axe, but I haven’t seen any red name comments.

5 thoughts on “Is that a veteran reward in your hand, or are you just happy to see me?”

  1. It’ll be a while before I’m entitled to care, but still: They’re offering VetRewards that help one origin more than another? That’s bound to raise some hackles on the boards.
    I’m glad I don’t read the boards very much.

  2. And a bit of extra from Castle:

    I think the Nemesis Staff temp power originally had a minion-mag disorient, but that it was turned off when the power was nerfed. Maybe they’ve reactivated it for the Vet Reward power?
    You’re right! I didn’t check the %Chance for the Disorient earlier. It’s 0% currently. Since I was including that in my Balancing, I’ll have to revisit these two powers.

  5. Actually, this blog’s set up so that any URL will be automatically linkified. Woot!
    (Though, yeah, I’d like to have those little buttons. Low on the blog priority list, though.)

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