Any Class Thoughts On Empire Builder As Elemental Splash Damage

Due to the high SP requirement for some late game builds, it is hard for them to cover all 5 elements. Most builds tend to by tri-elemental. Because of this, some people use secondary or offhand weapons to cover for the missing damages. Notable among these is the Hive weapons due to them having no SP requirement and good elemental damage after powdering. However, generally people get the Hive armor instead of the Hive weapon and most people don't have enough tokens to get both the armor and the weapon. I wanted to look at some replacement for the Hive weapons, particularly in Mage.

First let's look at some wands that have no SP requirements. Beyond the Hive weapons, here is a brief list:
1. Bonder (Wybel weapon)
2. Bob's Mythic Wand
3. Wybel Ivory Wand
4. Empire Builder
5. Impeccable Granite/Jungle/Light Jungle Stick

These are the weapons that seems to have the potential to fill the role of the Hive weapons with the Impeccable Sticks providing a baseline to compare the damages.

I did some raw damage calculations:

Spoiler: Hive Wand

Earth : 888 DPS, 4.5k Meteor
Thunder : 926 DPS, 4.65k Meteor
Water : 814 DPS, 4.1k Meteor
Fire : 841 DPS, 4.2k Meteor
Air : 845 DPS, 4.2k Meteor

Spoiler: Bonder

Assuming best ID on - Spell and Melee dmg

Earth : 539 DPS, 2.7k Meteor
Thunder : 553 DPS, 2.8k Meteor
Water : 514 DPS, 2.6k Meteor
Fire : 524 DPS, 2.6k Meteor
Air : 526 DPS, 2.6k Meteor

Additional benefits: Some good Health Regen, up to 5/4 MR

Spoiler: Bob's Mythic Wand

Earth : 531 DPS, 2.7k Meteor
Thunder : 547 DPS, 2.8k Meteor
Water : 495 DPS, 2.5k Meteor
Fire : 511 DPS, 2.6k Meteor
Air : 509 DPS, 2.6k Meteor

Spoiler: Wybel Ivory Wand

Earth : 383 DPS, 2k Meteor
Thunder : 394 DPS, 2k Meteor
Water : 363 DPS, 1.8k Meteor
Fire : 370 DPS, 1.9k Meteor
Air : 370 DPS, 1.9k Meteor

Additional benefits: Good XP and Loot bonus

Spoiler: Empire Builder

Earth : 662 DPS, 3.3k Meteor
Thunder : 719 DPS, 3.6k Meteor
Water : 543 DPS, 2.8k Meteor
Fire : 592 DPS, 3k Meteor
Air : 594 DPS, 3k Meteor

Additional benefits: +30 SP (not a huge deal tbh)

Spoiler: Impeccable Stick

Around 300-400 DPS, 1.8-2k Meteor

Conclusion:

In terms of raw DPS, it seems that Empire Builder is the closest to Hive weapons. However, maxing out an Empire Builder with 8 T6 powder is also really expensive. Something else to consider is that due to Empire Builder's low base neutral damage, it has the greatest variation of damages across the elements. Empire Builder benefits the most with Earth and Thunder powders that gives the most raw damage.

Ultimately, I feel like if you are looking to have a splash of Earth or Thunder damage for an offhand weapon, Empire Builder is ok (If you are willing to spend the powders), Wybel Ivory Wand is probably still better just being used as a weapon to switch to when doing dungeons, and Bonder may be a better replacement Water, Fire, and Air, trading 100 DPS and 400 Meteor dmg for 5/4 MR. Due to the higher difficulty of acquiring a good Bonder though, I feel like Empire Builder is the best replacement for Hive right now.

 

Of note: The gap between bonder and empire builder will close with a build that has high %spell/%elemental damage/dex/str due to bonder having higher base some -% damage.

(But if you don't have damage boosts in the offhand element then that doesn't really matter /shrug)

case (hypothetical EWF build with 60 str, 40% spell damage, and no -thunder damage):
https://wynndata.tk/s/c9dou0 bonder
https://wynndata.tk/s/sjil73 empire builder

meteor difference dropped from ~800 to ~450.

edit: correction, bonder just has lower base, feelsbadman