Wands, Staves, and Scepters[]
| Core | Wand | Scepter | Staff | Staffter |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stick | 25 | 37 | 62 | 93 |
| Greatwood | 50 | 75 | 125 | 187 |
| Elemental | 75 | 112 | 187 | 281 |
| Silverwood | 100 | 150 | 250 | 375 |
| Primal | — | — | 250 | 375 |
Each wand is crafted from a wand core, and two metallic wand caps, which are assembled on the arcane workbench. They can also be equipped with interchangable wand foci granting additional abilities.
Each of these components can be made of various materials which affect the abilities of the wand: The metal used for the caps controls the level of efficiency when using vis, providing a discount or surcharge for magical costs. The material used for the core determines the storage capacity of the wand, and some materials also allow wands to regenerate small amounts of vis while held. Naturally, more effective wands are more difficult and expensive to craft, including the final assembly of core and caps. Various add-ons can provide additional materials for wand cores and caps.
| Material | discount | Note |
|---|---|---|
| Iron | -10% | node damage |
| Copper | -10%/0% | AEFW/OP, node damage |
| Gold | 0% | |
| Silver | 0%/10% | OP/AEFW |
| Thaumium | 10% | |
| Voidmetal | 20% |
Advancing thaumaturges can also craft two variations on the wand theme, each of which requires a Primal Charm in their crafting. These are the staff and the scepter:
There is also one special staff core, the “Staff Core of the Primal”, which has no matching wand core. Merely researching this staff core is difficult: Besides being forbidden research in its own right, just seeing the topic requires having learned the researches for all previous wand and staff cores, experiencing the Eldritch Epiphany, and scanning a Primal Focus. Creating it requires a massive infusion, to combine all seven advanced wand cores, large amounts of essentia, and a couple of primal charms for good measure. The resulting Staff of The Primal can hold 250 vis in each aspect, and will regenerate up to 10% of that total in all aspects. Creating the staff core from scratch will cost 4 of each primal shard, plus 9 balanced shards, for 33 shards total.
As the materials involved become more advanced, the final binding of caps to a wand or staff becomes rapidly more expensive. In particular, binding thaumium caps to a silverwood core takes slightly more vis than a gold-capped greatwood wand can contain. However, a greatwood-and-gold scepter, can hold enough vis. This pattern can be continued for still more advanced craftings, such as the silverwood/voidmetal staff and Primal/thaumium staff. Sadly, as of version 4.2.3.5 there is no legal combination of discounts and crafting scepter sufficient to produce a Void Aspected Primal Staff (or Staffter). Without use of bugs or add-ons to gain extra discounts, a player must choose between two different “top-tier” staves: Silverwood and voidmetal, or Primal with thaumium. Both have the same capacity, but one offers voidmetals increased discount, while the other regenerates 10% of its capacity.
Arcane Crafting[]
A wand or scepter, but not a staff, can be placed in the special slot of an Arcane Workbench. When the ingredients of a magical recipe are arranged in the workbench, the wand will be checked to see if it has enough vis of the proper types for that recipe. Only if it does, the result item can be taken, and the appropriate amounts of vis will be used up. If the wand does not have enough vis in any aspect, this will be indicated in the GUI, and the aspects which are short will flash. n
Aspect Orbs:[]
There is a “backup” charging method which is likewise available to all players. When any mob (hostile or tame) is killed, it will drop “aspect orbs” of various primal aspects. The selection of primals will depend on the natural aspects of the mob, being components of those aspects. If the player moves near these orbs with a wand (etc.) in their hotbar, the they will pick up the aspect orbs much like items, but instead of their inventory, the vis will be gathered into the wand. If there is more than one wand in the hotbar, the leftmost one will take priority, but once that is full in a given aspect, the next wand will take the energy, and so on. Additionally if a player has one or more primal charms in their inventory, these will produce aspect orbs, which will fall off the player and can immediately be picked up.
With some research, a thaumaturge will learn to build a Wand Recharge Pedestal. When placed near a node, a wand or any variation can be placed in the pedestal, and will automatically drain from all nearby nodes. (The hazard of draining the node dry still applies for low-quality wands.) An additional accessory can be added to the pedestal, called the Compound Recharge Focus (no relation to wand foci). With this in place, the wand can also drain compound aspects from a node, receiving one point of some primal (a component of the aspect) for each compound point drained. Once the thaumaturge has learned the Node In a Jar construct, they can collect nodes from the landscape to create a Node Room for easy recharging of all aspects. See the article on nodes for more details on node rooms.
Once an Energized Node has been researched and created, it can be used to distribute energy through Vis Relays. A special version of these relays is the Vis Charging Relay, which can be placed atop an Arcane Workbench. Once this is set up, the relay will rapidly charge any wand or scepter placed in the workbench. However, since staves cannot be placed in a workbench, they cannot be charged this way.
A moderately advanced crafting, this amulet can store a large amount of vis. (There are also “apprentice” versions found in loot chests, which store only a few points but are otherwise similar.) Once charged, the amulet will slowly feed vis into any wand, staff, or scepter which is being held in hand (that is, active tool).
The vis amulet itself can be charged in only two ways: By placing it in a Recharging Pedestal like a wand; or by wearing it while the player stands near an Energized Node or active Vis Relay. (Note that the charging range for the amulet is shorter than usual, perhaps 3-4 blocks.) The amulet absorbs and delivers centivis at about the same rate, so if it is charging a wand while being recharged by a node, it will break even until the wand is filled. This method is much slower than using a Charging Relay directly, but it does work on staves.
FAQ
How do you use a Pech wand in Thaumcraft?
How do you put Vis in a wand?
How do you put a wand focus on a wand?
