Magic Wands, some love them or hate them, others either consider them junk, or invaluable tools of the trade.

Wands in general:

Current varieties:

Post Age of Shadows Magic Wands come in 6 varieties.

Wand of Harming.
Wand of Healing.
Wand of Magic Arrow.
Wand of Greater Healing.
Wand of Fireball.
Wand of Lightning.

All of these wands will come with a varying number of charges from 0 to 80+.

Pre-AoS varieties:

Prior to Age of Shadows, Gnarled Staves also came with spell casting, and both wands and Gnarled Staves had the additional spells listed:

Gnarled Staff or Wand of Paralyze.
Gnarled Staff or Wand of Clumsy.
Gnarled Staff or Wand of Feeblemind.
Gnarled Staff or Wand of Weakness.
Gnarled Staff or Wand of Mana Draining.
Gnarled Staff or Wand of Item Identification.

All of these types may still exist in the game and may be considered collectors items by some since they do not spawn anymore.
The identification wands have no use since all items in the game no longer require identification before you know the properties.
Prior to the resist changes and the paralyze wands being dropped with AoS, a paralyze wand was a very powerful and underused tool for group PvP.

Wand Properties:

The power of the wands spell is affected by the wielders Evaluate Intelligence skill. Players with no or low Evaluate Intelligence skill will find that the wands power is greatly reduced.

All wands have the property ‘Spell Channeling’ meaning they will allow you to cast magic spells while holding the weapon, and they are also ‘Mage Weapons,’ which means they use your Magic skill as if you had the Mace Fighting skill to allow you to effectively wield the wand as a Mace.

Magic Wands: Valuable equipment or worthless junk?

This really depends on your play style and your character type. The 6 wand types that currently spawn can be invaluable if used them appropriately. Although this is not a complete list of uses, these examples might give you some ideas on how to put the wands to best use.

Dungeon lock picking:
When doing a dungeon lock-picking run I will carry a wand of Fireballs, Lightning and Greater Heal.

When picking the chest in the Daemon Temple or Destard I will equip the wand of Greater Healing. This gives me a two second delay in casting a Greater Heal spell, and I can cast the spell while running. When a Dragon targets me and cast fireball I can heal in 2 seconds without stopping. So as I dash across the dungeon to pick the chest and get several Dragon and Drakes targeting me I can quickly heal on the run, pick the chest and recall out. This can be a real lifesaver when a dragon fireball takes off most of your life and you still have another dragon or drake on your tail.

When picking in the Ice Dungeon I equip a Wand of Fireballs. It takes about 15-17 fireballs to kill an
Ice Fiend using a Wand, with a two second delay between fireballs you can drop him pretty fast. Other cold creatures vary in the amount of time it takes to kill with a wand, but with no manna loss and a high rate of fire a wand can be very effective at clearing out a lot of small spawn. You can killed an Arctic Ogre using a Wand of Fireballs but it is very time consuming against the Ogre Lord’s high hit points. Ice Elementals are excellent Fireball wand targets; Giant ice serpents are a bit harder to kill with them.

Treasure Hunting:
For the level 1-3 chest you can clear out all the chest spawn using a Wand of Lightning and a Wand of Fireballs. All of the MOB’s that spawn with these level chest are week enough that they can be killed in three to four hits with a Lightning Wand, or for the Lich, a Fireball Wand. For the higher-level chest a Wand can help clear the smaller MOB’s that are spawned as you remove the chest contents. You can dump all your mana on that Dread Spider, or use that magic Wand from the chest and kill it in 5 Lightning hits with no mana loss. Save your mana for the Ogre Lords and Lich Lords. On level 4 and 5 chest I equip a Wand of greater healing while digging the chest up. This way I have an instant Greater Heal spell that I can cast while running full speed away from the initial chest spawn. With a two second delay in casting and the ability to cast while running full speed I can keep healing as the Daemons, Lich Lords, and Poison Elementals dump on me.

Magery Skill Training:
All magic wands have both the property of Spell Channeling and Mage Weapon. This means that you can carry the wand in your hand as a weapon while casting spells. The mage Weapon property comes with a modifier to your Magic skill.

The game currently sets your Magery skill to the adjusted level for purposes of determining skill gain. The second factor of Mage Weapon is that is uses the items weapon type, in the case of Wands it’s the Mace skill, and uses that as if you had the skill at the modified level of your Magery.

So if you are a GM Mage and equip a Wand of Lightning, with a property of Mage Weapon ­26, your Magery will drop to 74, and you will use the mace as if you had a mace fighting skill of 74.

Assuming you have applied a Power Scroll to raise you Magery cap above 100, you can now gain in the Magery skill in two ways.

The Tamer:
My Tamer carries a Wand of Greater Healing. When I am dealing with a MOB that has an Aura of Damage, such as the Succubus, or the Ice Fiend that prevents me from standing next to my pet and using the Veterinary skill the wand can be a very handy way to keep the pet alive without mana dumping, or even while mana dumping. On those occasions when I am hunting in dungeons that MOB’s occasionally overwhelm you the wand can make the difference between a dead pet, dead tamer (And pet) or life. I consider a Greater Healing Wand an indispensable accessory for my Tamer.

Conclusion:
Toss it on the ground if you really have no use for it, or consider it an invaluable tool of your trade, either way I hope this essay has given you some ideas on how you might use a wand.

Fare thee well on thy adventures,
Daemonbone