A few questions about dangerous implements...

[Ben No.3]

1. Does it make the rod the best implement regardless of its slower "reload"time?

2. Does the dangerous implement + (penetrating) blast make the best "normal" wizard's weapon, especially when compared to a per-encounter-parasitic staff?

[Undesirable]

Best implement is Minor Blights. Basically get blast, penetrating blast, dangerous implements (of course), penetrating shot and as many elemental damage increase talents as possible. Then for spell mastery, get Eldritch Aim, Alacrity and Blights. To top it all off, cast Martial Power for the ultimate auto attacking area of effect pwnage. Mob immune to a certain damage type? Well, no matter; you're going to smash him and his friends with another form of elemental damage within a second or two.

 

Even if you don't cast Martial Power, you still have a deadly Wizard that can knock mobs down, send them to sleep or even petrify them, before proceeding to nuke.

 

I'm almost tempted to say that they make Rangers with endgame gear obsolete, but perhaps the pet and the Wizard's setup casting time levels the playing field somewhat.

Edited August 8, 2016 by Undesirable

[Ben No.3]

Yes, I do know about the blights... However, it takes quite a while till they become per encounter, compared to the staff. My question is aimed specifically at staff vs upgraded implements

[Loren Tyr]

The whole Blights + Blast thing is rather cheesy though. A pity they never fixed it really; can't imagine it was intended that way.

 

As for the OPs questions: in general, I'd say Wand/Scepter is better. Total attack duration for Rods is 1.5 times as long, and the increase in damage doesn't really compensate for that with or without Dangerous Implements. If you have Blast as well the faster Wand and Scepter certainly have the edge, since that isn't affected by the base damage of the implement you're using. Another advantage of Wands and Scepters (and Hunting Bow) is that it has a shorter recovery time, so if you suddenly need to cast a spell you won't on average have to wait as long before you can do so. It does also depend on what particular Rod you have though. Once you get into the unique ones, it might still be well worth it if it has nice additional abilities or enchantments.

 

Whether blast maging is better than other weapons however, is hard to say. It depends on other things and what you want to accomplish. Implements and blast do fairly low-level damage, which may not always be very useful (compared to, say, the high damage spikes of a gun). Though I do like the synergy with Combusting Wounds, especially with Curoc's Brand. Comparing it to melee weapons in particular gets tricky though, since it also requires a different play style with your mage. That Staff does pack a nice punch, and it's focused on a single enemy rather than diffused over a group, but you do need to be much closer to the action as well. 

[Boeroer]

For me, the best implement besides Minor Blights is The Golden Gaze. It has two projectiles instead of one and procs Expose Vulnerabilities which is great for two projectiles. It also lowers concentration. This makes this implement perfect for interrupts. It's two projectiles don't hit at the same time and each ofvthem does 0.5 secs interrupt in an AoE. It's also the only implement for me where Pen. Shot is worth a talent point. Because it only works with the initial hit and not the blast AoE, I seldomly use it.

 

One more tip with implements: Envenomed Strike works with blast, applying the poison to every target in the AoE. That is super powerful.

[Undesirable]

I don't feel too bad about using the Minor Blights cheese seeing as how they nerfed disorienting weapons to dust and introduced immunities.

[Livegood118]

If you're looking in to making a blights build I made a post outlining some inconsistent behaviour regarding talents/item bonuses in the bug report forum:

 

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/84860-ryonas-vambraces-and-penetrating-shot-do-not-apply-to-blast-also-llengraths-blunting-wisdom-bug/

 

Might help you decide what to go for. Not sure if this is still all the case in whatever version the game's on now - I don't recall seeing any patch notes amending the behaviour.