Welcome to the Wand / Dagger PvE Build Guide! The Wand / Dagger weapon combination is primarily a support build that revolves around mixing ranged and melee playstyles to ensure you can be anywhere on the battlefield.
Unlike a more traditional Support or DPS build, you need to keep a close watch on both allies and enemies alike to make the best use of your Curse Explosion, Cursed Nightmare, Blessed Barrier, and Swift Healing abilities. Knowing when and where to use these skills for maximum value makes all the difference between a good support and a great one.
Wand / Dagger PvE Build
If you're interested in PvP, check out our Wand / Dagger PvP Build Guide!
- Hybrid DPS
- High AoE DPS
- High Crit Healing
- Low Mobility
- High Mana Cost
Skill Builds
Active Skills
DPS Skills
- The Block we use is Chaotic Shield. It gives you a new skill called Healing Spell that heals and restores the stamina of a target (including yourself) when you perfect block. It also lowers the cooldown of your Curses, making it the ideal choice for this playstyle. If you find yourself struggling for mana regen, change to Block Blade instead.
- Use Touch of Despair and Decaying Touch to apply Curses and set up for Curse Explosion.
- Curse Explosion does damage based on how much of your DOT is remaining on the enemy from both Touch of Despair and Decaying Touch.
- Lightning Infusion is used to proc the extra crit rate from Destructive Fang and set up massive damage from Thunderclouds Bombing.
- Fatal Stigma is used as a last bit of extra burst damage to the build.
- Take Cleaving Moonlight and Thunderclouds Bombing for massive single target burst damage.
Utility Skills
- Shadow Strike is taken to add a bit of extra mobility to the build.
- Enchanting Time boosts your targets Skill Damage for its duration. This is cast on yourself.
- Fighting Spirit Barrier gives your target a large Base Damage boost for the duration and is used to boost our burst as well.
- Unlucky Clock is taken to add burst to our Curse Explosion, and is best used in combination with Fighting Spirit Barrier and Enchanting Time.
Support Skills
- Swift Healing is the only heal you take when doing DPS, and is reserved for emergency situations.
Passive Skills
- Destructive Fang is used to increase our crit on any target affected by Lightning Infusion.
- Wrathful Edge and Assassin's Instincts serve a dual purpose in this build as both your DPS and healing skills can critically strike.
- Vampiric Contract for a bit of easy self sustain.
- Selfless Soul helps to add a bit more healing to the build in case of emergencies.
- Devotion and Emptiness and Noble Revival serve to scale your healing and provide CDR which is useful across all of our skills.
- Wraith's Beckon increases the duration of your Curses, and by extension the damage of Curse Explosion.
Active Skills
DPS Skills
- The Block we use is Chaotic Shield. It gives you a new skill called Healing Spell that heals and restores the stamina of a target (including yourself) when you perfect block. It also lowers the cooldown of your Curses, making it the ideal choice for this playstyle. If you find yourself struggling for mana regen, change to Block Blade instead.
- Touch of Despair and Corrupted Magic Circle are used to apply Curses for the Full of Corruption passive and to combo with Curse Explosion.
- Curse Explosion is used to hit a large amount of mobs at once after they have been grouped up and Cursed
- Take Thunder Spirit to add a burst of extra AOE damage when in combination with Cleaving Moonlight and Lightning Infusion.
- Cleaving Moonlight and Thunderclouds Bombing for much needed single target damage as well as burst potential in our otherwise AOE centered build.
- Take Ray of Disaster to apply steady damage to entire groups of enemies as well as apply Lightning Infusion.
- Use Fatal Stigma for a bit of extra burst AOE damage.
Utility Skills
- Lightning Infusion is used to set up half of our AOE with Cleaving Moonlight and Thunder Spirit.
- Shadow Strike is taken for its ability to proc the passive skill Shadow Walker, as well as its ability to engage or disengage from a fight.
- Enchanting Time increases our Skill Damage Boost, bumping up our AOE damage even more.
Support Skills
- Swift Healing is the heal you use the most due to its short cooldown.
Passive Skills
- Shadow Walker is invaluable for providing much-needed Evasion to the build.
- Wrathful Edge and Assassin's Instincts serve a dual purpose in this build as both your DPS and healing skills can critically strike.
- Vampiric Contract helps to provide healing from all of our damage dealt to Cursed enemies..
- Destructive Fang is taken to increase Crit Rate.
- Assassin's Step for Movespeed and Mana Regen while farming.
- Full of Corruption for extra Base Damage and Mana Regen while farming.
- Wraith's Beckon for extra Curse duration and damage from Curse Explosion.
Active Skills
DPS Skills
- The Block we use is Chaotic Shield. It gives you a new skill called Healing Spell that heals and restores the stamina of a target (including yourself) when you perfect block. It also lowers the cooldown of your Curses, making it the ideal choice for this playstyle. If you find yourself struggling for mana regen, change to Block Blade instead.
- Use Touch of Despair and Decaying Touch to apply curses for a bit of extra damage and to provide the Curse stacks for Curse Explosion.
- Take Cleaving Moonlight and Thunderclouds Bombing for massive single target burst damage.
- Lightning Infusion is used to proc the extra crit rate from Destructive Fang and set up massive damage from Thunderclouds Bombing.
Utility Skills
- Shadow Strike is taken to add a bit of extra mobility to the build.
- Time for Punishment lowers the Skill Damage Resistance of the target, which translates to dealing more damage.
Support Skills
- Swift Healing is the heal you use the most due to its short cooldown.
- Take Fountain of Life to quickly stack Selfless Soul.
- Clay's Salvation is to heal the entire party when needed.
- Invincile Wall is taken to reduce the damage of hard hitting attacks for the whole party.
Passive Skills
- Destructive Fang is used to increase our crit on any target affected by Lightning Infusion.
- Wrathful Edge and Assassin's Instincts serve a dual purpose in this build as both your DPS and healing skills can critically strike.
- Vampiric Contract for a bit of easy self sustain.
- Selfless Soul helps to add a bit more healing to the build in case of emergencies.
- Devotion and Emptiness and Noble Revival serve to scale your healing and CDR which is useful across all of your skills.
- Wraith's Beckon increases the duration of our Curses, and by extension the damage of Curse Explosion.
Skill Prioritization
- Use Quality Marind Ore to craft Quality Active Skill Growth Book and Quality Passive Skill Growth Book.
- Use Rare Marind Ore to craft Rare Active Skill Growth Book and Rare Passive Skill Growth Book.
- Prioritize getting all these skills to blue first before getting them to purple. These are universal skills you will always use. Upgrade the rest of your skills as you play the game.
PvE Gameplay and Skill Rotation
Opening Rotation
- Lightning Infusion
- Enchanting Time
- Touch of Despair
- Shadow Strike
- Fatal Stigma
- Lightning Infusion
- Fighting Spirit Barrier
- Cleaving Moonlight x2
- Let Fatal Stigma explode
- Thunderclouds Bombing
- Touch of Despair
- Decaying Touch
- Unlucky Clock
- Curse Explosion
- This is your opener in boss fights. Focus on using Touch of Despair off CD as much as possible.
- If you need to conserve mana, you can cycle between Cleaving Moonlight, Touch of Despair, and Thunderclouds Bombing to deal steady damage.
- Always use Shadow Strike or Cleaving Moonlight before your Curse Explosion and Thunderclouds Bombing to get the most out of the passive proc from Lequirus's Thorny Edge
Healing
- Blessed Barrier
- Fountain of Life
- Clay's Salvation
- Swift Healing
- Chaotic Shield
- Vampiric Contract
- This isn’t a rotation as much as it is a use order of skills to use keep you and your party at full Health.
- You may not have all these skills equipped depending on your party role. However, use the order of skills to help you determine how much healing you can provide. This ensures you use the right ability for the right situation to manage resources.
- When someone is at death's door, use this skillset from top to bottom (except for Vampiric Contract as it's a passive) to fully heal anyone in the game. Lastly, with tools like Fountain of Life and Clay's Salvation you are also more than capable of healing your entire party as well.
General AoE
- Lightning Infusion
- Enchanting Time
- Thunder Spirit
- Ray of Disaster
- Fatal Stigma
- Touch of Despair
- Cleaving Moonlight x2
- Lightning Infusion
- Let Fatal Stigma explode.
- Thunderclouds Bombing
- Touch of Despair
- Corrupted Magic Circle
- Curse Explosion
- The main goal of this DPS rotation is to spread as many of your Curses over as many targets as possible. During downtime, spam Cleaving Moonlight and Touch of Despair to upkeep steady damage while waiting for Curse Explosion.
Stat Priorities
Use the following stat priority when following the Wand / Dagger PvE build.
- Primary Stat
- Dexterity and Strength
- Secondary Stat
- Wisdom and Perception
You have 49 Stat Points you can freely allocate to any of the 4 primary Stats. Once you put 20 points into an individual Stat, it takes 2 points to increase the Stat by 1. Do not put more than 20 points unless absolutely necessary.
You get bonuses for every 10 Stat Points you invest from 30 to 60. You invest your points based on acquiring these bonuses.
Consider Stat Points as a way to fine-tune your secondary stats, such as Attack Speed, Crit Chance, Evasion, HP, Hit Rate, and even CC Chance.
The end goal is to hit the 50 point stat threshold for Strength and the 60 stat threshold for Dexterity for the bonus 100 Heavy Attack Chance and the additional Crit Hit/Bonus Damage. The remaining points are placed into Wisdom and Perception for extra stats like Hit Chance, Cool Down Speed and Mana Regen.
Mid Game Gear
Once you start slotting blue gear pieces into your build, aim to get your Stat Points to the 40 Dexterity threshold, with the remaining Stats going into Wisdom. If you find you need the extra Hit Chance, you can sacrifice points in Dexterity to hit the 30 Perception threshold for the extra 100 Hit.
End Game Gear
With optimized end game gear, you can hit powerful Stat Point thresholds. We aim for 50 Strength for the extra 100 Heavy Attack and the 50 and 60 Dexterity thresholds for the extra 5% Movespeed and 120 Critical Hit respectively.
Gear Progression
Gearing for Wand / Dagger can be fairly varied, and depending on if you want to be a primary Healer or a primary DPS your priorities can change greatly.
If you're interested in PvP Gear Progression, check out our Wand / Dagger PvP Build Guide!
Early Game Wand / Dagger PvE Build
Fresh out of the story, you should be prioritizing Mana Regen and survivability over most other things when selecting gear. More often than not, hold onto green items to trait out for your mid-game in order to not lose too many stats when swapping over to your blue gear.
With this gear set and level 50, the stats you are aiming for are 30 Dexterity, 10 Strength, 31 Wisdom, and 30 Perception.
Mid Game Wand / Dagger PvE Build
Mid-game, you slowly phase out your green gear for blues, even replacing some of the story blues with better options. Keep in mind that an item with traits is better than an untraited item in most cases. Some gear pieces can be a bit hard to obtain early on, so keep in mind that it's perfectly ok to keep your traited green gear until you can replace them.
The main focus is to begin acquiring gear that gives flat bonuses to our Stat Points. Particularly, we are looking to push Dexterity as high as possible for maximum damage in PvE while also mixing in some other stats like Strength, Wisdom, and Perception for their useful bonuses.
By this point in your progression, you are aiming to hit the 40 Dexterity threshold in your build. The remainder of your stats are put into Wisdom as we are unable to hit any other milestones.
Wand / Dagger PvE Build No Rune Synergies or Resonance
Wand / Dagger PvE Build With Rune Synergies and Resonance
This end game set is primarily designed around being Melee DPS, stacking Crit Hit, Crit Damage, Heavy Attack, and Attack Speed. Getting all of this gear is going to take a long time so don't be afraid to get other suitable pieces in the meantime to hold you over. Your stat spread with this gear should be 50 Strength, 50 Dexterity, 40 Wisdom, and 41 Perception. It is worth noting that the large Strength investment is not worth it UNTIL you can get to 50 Strength for the Heavy Attack bonus. Until then, your Stat Points are better focused into Wisdom for more overall damage. With full Rune Synergy, your stat spread should be 50 Strength, 40 Dexterity, 50 Wisdom, and 50 Perception.
Alternatives
Wand / Dagger PvE Build No Rune Synergies or Resonance
- You can replace the two-piece Death Set with two-piece Transcended One Set until you get Reaper's Interring Pants. If you want the Crit Damage from the Death Set bonus early on, you can use Reaper's Concealing Shroud. Due to the poor stats on this chest, it's not recommended to trait it out.
Wand / Dagger PvE Build No Rune Synergies or Resonance
Wand / Dagger PvE Build With Rune Synergies and Resonance
This gear setup is primarily focused on stacking Mana Regen, Cooldown Speed, and a bit of Crit Hit/Crit Damage. This is so you can heal as often as possible with the largest heals you can get. Some of these pieces are difficult to both acquire and trait, so use gear from the Mid Game Gear section to hold you over in the meantime. Your stat spread with this setup should be 30 Strength, 50 Dexterity, 50 Wisdom, and 47 Perception. With full Rune Synergy, your stat spread is 50 Strength, 40 Dexterity, 60 Wisdom, and 39 Perception.
Guardians
Guardians are special transformations that add offensive or defensive buffs or attacks to your character for 30 seconds. These are the recommended Guardians for the Wand / Dagger PvE Build.
You can choose between Lady Knight Kamarshea, Shade Revenant Sthenoor Masked Warlock Dantalux.
- Lady Knight Kamarshea gives you a shield based on your mana and lowers your cooldowns. This increases your DPS as a mage and allows you to heal more often, making it a solid choice.
- If you find you and your party members are having Mana issues, take Masked Warlock Dantalux instead for the Mana sustain.
- If you want to squeeze out as much DPS as possible use Shade Revenant Stheno.
Summary
- Wand / Dagger is a Support build that mixes melee and ranged play-styles.
- Combine a mixture of survivability and damage with skills such as Thunderclouds Bombing and Swift Healing to both deal damage and keep people alive.
- Play next to your tank so it's easier to keep him alive/keep his stamina bar full.
- Focus on durability, Dexterity, and Strength for your gear with traits that increase Health, Evasion, Damage, Buff Duration, and Mana Regen.
- This build needs Mana Regen to perform well, and best-in-slot gear is gated behind Arch Bosses so it can take a long time to acquire.
Credits
Written by Nymphellas
Reviewed by Yaen and Dredscythe