It's something else. Like yesterday I got my ass completely handed to me when I was protected to the teeth by a warrior 3 ranks over me and I had my game face on. EVERYTHING possible I had to use against him, I did and I didn't even last long enough to get a dispel off to nuke his own prepping. And he was NOT a villager.

As Enotova if I didn't have a shield potion, I simply could not handle an offensive shifter. If they had a shield and aura up (which are pretty easy to keep up at least 80% of the time with the class spell) I MIGHT be able to squeeze off a big flurry to make them flee. But that was risky. The only way I could run them off reliably was catching them off guard or trying to conserve their barrier wand. To me that's annoying. I have to spam up a weapon skill to 100% to dish out max damage. I have to spam up defensive skills. A shifter, they just have to power rank to 51, and get a wand. That's it. Maybe the parry skill has an affect in form, but I've never had a mage that needed 100% parry to survive.

So the problem as I see it isn't the wand system, it's the already gross imbalance being amplified. On the one hand, you need ABS to deal with massive gank squads. Back in the day, you needed sanc potions to deal with death blow. That was what we had. No ABS, just sanc and protection and stone skin preps. Death blow was MUCH better back then. I used to have a log of me as Trewyn spellbaning 18 out of 20 area spells in a row while stuck in some quicksand on the eastern until deathblow erradicated both mages. Took a while cause I was only doing like massacres with my deathblows, but it's not like they were hitting me. Just invoke boltthrower and get an extra 200 hp, and 10 more hit and dam and let's rock! I got to berserk TWICE in the fight.

But now a days you have matches that are so grossly out of proportion it isn't even funny. As a conjurer at level 27 going up against level 19-23 anything without enhanced damage you are just simply going to blow them out of the water. As a non-giant warrior with enhanced damage 100%, weapon 100% and properly clothed, you are simply going to blow any mage out of the water pre-20. If you short yourself saves, the random mage might catch you off guard and wax your ass. But until said mage gets aura and shield, after 20 it's pretty assured that a properly clothed warrior is going to destroy them. Especially when non-traditional lagging moves start working really good. At level 25, a warrior that tanks well can destroy a conjurer with bash. It's not even a fair fight because in order for the conjurer to even the damage output with a wand, they have to get rid of a shield or a second person. The fight doesn't even out until the mage gets barrier. In the 30's, a barriered mage is something to be cautious of. But against a conjurer with an archon, it's difficult to do more damage than that archon heals and those elementals at hero level ARE NOT the pussies they are in the 20's. And let's not talk about how annoying it is to kill an invoker at hero level.

The problem ISN'T abs or the wand system. The ABS and prep system merely amplifies the imbalance that used to be negated by 3 vs 3 gank squads roaming around that aren't there anymore. When the average fight became 1 vs 1 and 2 vs 1 became a "gank". That's when ABS "broke".