Ok again WoW -> Help! Need to know how to use a wand.

[Intruder]

Sorry for yet another WoW thread but I need your help fellow mages or warlocks!

I'm a lvl 19 Human Warlock in the game and recently got my first wand (I use a dagger as my first weapon).
However I can't seem to figure out how to use it.

Right now my setup is like this:

Main weapon: dagger
Offhand: some item that pushes stamina and intelligence
Ranged: wand
ammo: empty

I dragged the wand icon on my attack bar. So far so good.
But how do I use it now? <- I clicked left and right on it and tried to mark
a creature in battle that had fun with my Voidwalker but nothing happened.

Do I need training for it? <- I couldn't find a trainer for wands in Stormwind nor Ironforge so far. All the ones I asked didn't mention a
wand trainer as well

Do I need "ammo" for it? <- Couldn't find any for it.

I read the manual + strategy guide + WoW forums + googled but couldn't find this answer. Probably I do something stupidly wrong....

Please help me!

[Ronin]

In your skills book, their should be one named "Shoot"

This is your wand attack. Put that in your attack bar and use it to open fire. Don't expect too much success until you get your wand skill up though.

[Lee]

It took me a few hour to figure this out myself. You should be able to use a weapon to attack, instead of a skill.

[Intruder]

As I said: I was stupid! :p

Thanks A LOT!

Now after 45 min of killing low level beast I have a wand skill of 87/95

Be VERY afraid mob around Loch Modan now...

Off to play

[KiloOhm]

My biggest gripe with wands, no "Autoshoot". PITA to use em.

[Odin]

My biggest gripe with wands, no "Autoshoot". PITA to use em.

Yeah, there's no good reason for that not to be there. Makes wands more trouble than they're worth.

Sith

[ChrisGwinn]

I disagree. My priest uses her wand a lot - it's probably my major source of damage output.

[Odin]

It may well be they're more useful now than they had been. The last time I played, they had nerfed wand damage pretty badly and had changed the way the delay timer worked to make them a lot of work to fire repeatedly. If some of that's been fixed, great. I still say an autoshoot for wands would be ideal.

Sith

[Rubyeye]

The thread title cracks me up.

[Exodor]

My biggest gripe with wands, no "Autoshoot". PITA to use em.

Yeah, there's no good reason for that not to be there. Makes wands more trouble than they're worth.

Sith

Every time that's brought up on the official servers, the response is always "only hunters get autoshoot - it's one of their class-defining abilities"

[fancydirt]

Well then I'd like my rogue to be able to shoot people with his gun at point blank range and get a damage bonus for it.

Ranged weapons for anyone but hunters are more of a utility thing and not supposed to be part of your core dps. The implementation isn't entirely logical or even good, but it's the way they've had it for a long time.

[KiloOhm]

My biggest gripe with wands, no "Autoshoot". PITA to use em.

Yeah, there's no good reason for that not to be there. Makes wands more trouble than they're worth.

Sith

Every time that's brought up on the official servers, the response is always "only hunters get autoshoot - it's one of their class-defining abilities"

You know, I'm surprised Blizzard would make a retarded statement like that. Why should an ability that takes away tedium be a "class specific" ability. Hunters have plenty of good unique abilities (hello! pets!). It's not like wands are powerful, they are basically a way to do "something" in combat when your mana is low. When I'm in close range with my mage I use a sword since even though I have a nice wand (~40-80 dmg) my sword does more damage.

[KiloOhm]

Well then I'd like my rogue to be able to shoot people with his gun at point blank range and get a damage bonus for it.

Ranged weapons for anyone but hunters are more of a utility thing and not supposed to be part of your core dps. The implementation isn't entirely logical or even good, but it's the way they've had it for a long time.

Now that's an ability I expected hunters to get as their "uber marksmanship" ability. Let them either reduce or nulify their minimum range. I understand this might take some rebalancing of their abilities but it would be cool and seems like it would fit.

[Gedd]

There actually is a hunter ability called scatter shot (I think) that has no or a very low minimum range. It does 50% damage and confuses the target for 4 seconds or until it's attacked. It's a skill that you get for working up the markmanship talent tree.

As for the autoshoot thing, I can see Bliz's point about not giving it to the other classes. Hunter's are really the only class that is supposed to be using items like guns and bows as their primary attack. If not having autoshoot encourages you to get in and melee or to use spells, then that may be part of what they're trying to accomplish.

[KiloOhm]

There actually is a hunter ability called scatter shot (I think) that has no or a very low minimum range. It does 50% damage and confuses the target for 4 seconds or until it's attacked. It's a skill that you get for working up the markmanship talent tree.

As for the autoshoot thing, I can see Bliz's point about not giving it to the other classes. Hunter's are really the only class that is supposed to be using items like guns and bows as their primary attack. If not having autoshoot encourages you to get in and melee or to use spells, then that may be part of what they're trying to accomplish.

But wand damage is so low, it will never be a "primary attack".

[ChrisGwinn]

My priests wand does a lot more damage than her melee attack.

[KiloOhm]

My priests wand does a lot more damage than her melee attack.

Right, but much less than Smite or Mind Blast, which was my point. The wand is only a backup for when you run of of your real damage stuff (spells). Having to "button mash" when I run out of mana is just not good.

[Butterknife]

A high damage slow-cast wand, plus a fast dagger, makes for a decent (if not spectacular) dps for my priest when the mana is gone or low (or regenerating). That being said, it would be foolish not to use my spells to fight before going to the dagger/wand, as the damage output is far higher for the spells.

I used to be far more annoyed about the lack of an auto-shoot for the wand, but I've gotten used to it. I can live with it if necessary, although naturally I'd prefer an auto-shoot. At least there isn't a minimum range for the wand, as there is for the Hunter's abilities -- that would really stink for a priest and make the wand effectively useless.

[ChrisGwinn]

My priests wand does a lot more damage than her melee attack.

Right, but much less than Smite or Mind Blast, which was my point. The wand is only a backup for when you run of of your real damage stuff (spells). Having to "button mash" when I run out of mana is just not good.

Smite and Mind Blast are interruptible and take mana away. I've actually gone to mostly using dagger+wand for damage, even when soloing. It may just be a quirk of the level I'm at (perhaps a mind blast skill is coming up soon). Right now, my wand is a significant percentage of my damage output, with SW:Pain (+ fear) being another large part.

[KiloOhm]

You have to be using non-upgraded spells to be doing more damage with a wand / dagger.

My level 38 mage just created a greater wand for himself that does 40-80 dmg, my priest spells at level 16 do more than that. Wands that my level 16 priest can use will be in the 20-40 damage range, far lower than smite or mind blast (except for maybe the lowest level one).

Mind blast, while interuptable has only a 1.5s (8 sec cooldown) cast so it's easy to get off, besides if your in H2H and do not have your soul shield up (unteruptable spells) then your life is indeed difficult.

[Toe]

At 55th level I am using:

Torch of Austen (wand)
55-104 fire damage
Speed 1.40
56.8 DPS
+10 Fire Resistance

and

Charstone Dirk (dagger)
40-75 damage
1.60 speed
35.9 DPS
+11 intellect

It does pretty well, but no way I could use these exclusively with any efficiency.

When I only got a little time to kill I often kill the 50-52 undead by Chillwind Point in the Western Plaugelands in order to build up faction with Argent Dawn and farm Runecloth for good coinage.

Mind you, these are green mobs to me now. I usually pull with Mind Blast, DoT, Mind Flay (then they are on me) then Mind Blast again. They are usually less than half health at this point. At that point, I can wand/dagger them until dead. They either die right before or after the last tick of my DoT, depending on their level and if i got any crits or resist.

During the time when they are beating on me they can take me down 25-50% health approximately. I usually kill two before I Renew myself. If I went straight melee with them, I probably would have to Renew myself 2+ times per battle and it would take 3 times as long to kill something.