Wands, Bows & the Glass-Cannon Tradeoff

Ancient wands and bows are PvE-only weapons: they do nothing to other players, but they are the main way to fight shades, wraiths and bosses. Both are pure ranged damage with a built-in catch: carry one and you take more damage in return.

What they hit

Wands and bows now damage all PvE content at their full rapid-fire rate:

• Shades and wraiths
• Every boss: Lamia, Echidna, Thanatos and Hephaestus, the four uber bosses and their Avatars
• Erebus Pit guards, Tearkeepers, Sacred Way creatures and every other monster

Against an Uber boss's minions both weapons hit all of them at once, so a wand or bow is the natural answer to an add-heavy fight.

They stay PvE-only, so don't reach for them in PvP. Against another player they simply do nothing.

Buying one

Wands and bows are bought whole from the Weapons stall at /shop. There are no cores or components to craft any more. Prices run $300 at wood, $3,000 at gold, $30,000 at iron and $300,000 at diamond. Netherite isn't sold there: Surtr in the netherite mine forges netherite wands and bows for 100 Infernal Scrap each, the same price as his other weapons.

Every shot costs Ancient Energy stored on the weapon. Click Ancient Energy onto a wand or bow to charge it.

Damage and energy per shot

Damage is the base per beam or arrow, before your enchants, trims and other bonuses. A wand or bow doesn't gain base damage from its gear level. Bows scale with the Power enchant instead.

Held fire

Both weapons fire by holding right-click: channel a wand beam or loose arrows by keeping the button down. Each beam or arrow now lands once, with no attack-cooldown throttling. That means cast-speed and fire-rate builds scale your single-target DPS: faster fire equals more hits on the target.

Wands no longer slow you down while firing. Holding right-click streams beams at full walking and sprinting speed, the same as a bow, and a single click still fires exactly one cast. A bow volley also lands at most 1 arrow on the same enemy now; Prism arrows still hit separate targets.

Holding a bow no longer blocks opening chests and doors. Firing only triggers on air, non-interactive blocks, or while sneaking, so you can still loot mid-fight. Arrows also land in Skywars now, complete with knockback.

The glass-cannon tradeoff

The cost is spelled out right on the tooltip. While the weapon is in your main hand, you take more damage from all sources:

When a fight closes in, swap to a melee weapon or an offhand rather than tank a hit with a wand still out.

Enchants, trims and leech

For the enchant lists that build on the base damage, see Bow Enchants and Wand Enchants. You can also dress either weapon with trims and cosmetics.

Life leech from your wand or bow (trims, jewels, the Orb of Moros implicit) counts all the damage you deal to bosses, ubers, Avatars and the big fissure creatures. Leech amounts were cut on every source in Map IV. See Weapon, Wand & Bow Trims.

Bows finally have a trim of their own: the Skyfall bow trim, the game's first, is a jackpot chase from the Skywars Champion Box.

Version history

v4.0.0 (Map 4)

• Wands deal 20% less base damage and bows 10% less, at every tier. A netherite wand now hits for 1.78 (was 2.22) and a netherite bow for 2.68 (was 2.98).
• Shot costs follow what players earn at each tier: gold and iron are about 4x cheaper to fire, wood about 30% cheaper, diamond about 40% cheaper, and netherite about 30% more.
• Life leech now counts all the damage you deal to bosses, ubers, Avatars and big fissure creatures.

v2.0.0

• Ancient wands and bows now damage all PvE content (every boss, all dungeon mobs, and Erebus pit guards) while staying PvE-only.
• Both can now be held to fire/channel, with every hit landing once so fire-rate builds scale single-target DPS.
• Added the glass-cannon penalty: +10% damage taken with a wand, +15% with a bow, shown on the tooltip.
• Bow base damage pinned just above an axe at every tier, and holding a bow no longer blocks chests or doors.

v3.0.0

• Wands no longer slow you down while you fire: hold right-click and stream beams at full walking and sprinting speed.
• Wand and bow cores and components are gone; both weapons are now bought whole from the Weapons stall at /shop ($300 wood, $3,000 gold, $30,000 iron, $300,000 diamond) or forged by Surtr for 100 Infernal Scrap at netherite.
• Wands and bows now arrive with no stored energy, charge one with Ancient Energy before firing.
• A bow volley now lands at most 1 arrow on the same enemy; Prism arrows still hit separate enemies.
• Prism now works on bows, splitting your shot into 1 extra arrow per level.
• Piercing Shot now passes arrows through bosses and other vanilla mobs, not just shades, and arrows no longer bounce off bosses and hang in the air.
• Added the Skyfall bow trim, the game's first bow trim, from the Skywars Champion Box.
• Dungeons were removed, so dungeon bosses and dungeon mobs are no longer on the target list; the four Uber bosses and their minions are.