Is naga rod underrated?

Question

Hi, druid 280 here. I'm quoting a new rod (I have cobra rod and I want to update my deepling fork), and I think that I've got good insights of the naga rod. I want to know if I'm missing something in my analysis, because as far as I'm concerned, Lion rod, Falcon rod and Cobra rod get much more attention.

Naga rod

- Gives +2ml, +1 ice ml (according to the more updated cyclopedia) and +4% fire prot and 2 imbue slots

- Can be imbued with critical (+5% chance + 40% dmg) and void/vampirism

- Proficiency gives the possibility to get another +2 ice ml, +3% ice crit dmg and 2 optional boosts to exori max frigo (total +20% crit chance or +30% life leech). Personally a 25% crit chance on a +5 ml max frigo to blast the last creature of the pool with 43% extra dmg sounds good to me...

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Lion rod

- Gives +2 ml, 5% chance +25% dmg - plus +5% dmg with one slot of proficiency (and additional +5% for all ice spells for a total of +35% dmg) - and 2 imbue slots

- Proficiency gives the possibility to raize +1% chance for ice spells and additional +1% for strong ice wave ,,, which is weak in my point of view, considering that it's only a 7% on a spell that doesn't hit the entire box and has 8 s cooldown.

- First point comes at the cost of not having critical imbue possibility ... so in sum the hit %damage will be worse than naga's (only 30% for all spells) and chance only raizes +1% for avas, ue and the ring ... +2% for ice wave and falls -14% for ultimate strike

- To compensate, imbues are mana and vampirism .. or whatever.

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Falcon rod

- Gives +3 mlvl and +8% energy protection and 2 imbue slots. The extra overall ml sounds good to me, but I don't think it's a clear win against 2 mlvl overall with a plus of 3 ice mlvls. Good situational protection, which, considering the sum of available items that give energy protection will give a good add.

- Can be imbued with critical (+5% chance + 40% dmg) and void/vampirism. Plus a +5% extra damage on proficiency. So, for all spells 5% chance of +45% dmg (5% more crit dmg than naga, but only +2 on ice)

- Proficiency is a bit weird to me. +3 hp on hit? sounds irrelevant. Auto-attack boosts? also sound irrelevant. I'm unsure if the route would be +20 mana on kill, then +5% of mlvl as extra damage (for a +6 hit) and +1 earth mlvl. I think naga wins in that point.

What are your opinions?

Answer 1

I will try to give you a short answer, to make it less complicated. If you want to minmax, you have to take several factors into account. The main one is, where are you planning to hunt?

Lion rod I won't include, because for rather obvious reasons, it's not a great rod.

Naga rod: magic lvl 2, ice magic lvl 2, protection fire 4%:

Notable difference in proficiency: Ice oriented. 3% crit dmg from ice spells and runes and 2 ice magic lvls. The rest is not relevant

Falcon rod: magic lvl 3, energy protection 8%

Notable difference in proficiency: mana on kill/crit hit chance for terra wave, 5% of your ml as extra dmg for spells, earth ml+1 and 5% critical extra damage.

The answer of which one is best depends. Personally, most of the time when I hunt solo, I am using avalanches so I would just pick the Naga rod for these situations. If I would be stepping into a spot where I play with other people, where I can use waves, which I won't do on solo, Falcon rod is the superior choice.

But if I was level 300 and I could only select one, COBRA ROD is the best choice. It's a more all-round balanced weapon, decent wheel and the extra life leech bonus is very comfortable. It beats Falcon rod in TH spots too most of the time, and it will make your life easier.

So no, I wouldn't agree the Naga rod is underrated. It's decent for solo hunting, but not much else. It has some minor uses where mobs are strong/immune against earth, like cobra bastion. But besides this, it's not great.