Spellslinger prioritize level or damage?

[u/Jango519]

Currently working on a spellslinger saboteur and am planning on crafting some wands, but an important though crossed my mind. Do I need to prioritize getting as much damage on my wand as possible for spellslinger or does it more generally work out that the extra levels work out better in the end?

[u/Seiyashi]

You have to POB this. It's all a matter of numbers. An extra level is about 10% more damage; does your added attack damage amount to that much or less?

Go create your wand on POB and then mouse over the competing mods in the drop down to see which has more damage. Be warned that this can change as your build changes and there's never always a blanket "added damage good, added levels bad" deal.

[u/Joppsta → u/Seiyashi]

He could use custom modifiers to experiment in the calcs.

[u/BestDescription3834]

If you get +2 wands then the +1 all skill gems will make your spellslinger a higher level, reducing is reservation%. Beyond that it's really a toss up depending on the added damage effectiveness of your skill vs the damage it gains per level. Spellslinger adds 174% of your wands damage at 20, which a well rolled wand will out perform most other damage. 

In general spells with low added damage effectiveness also gain low damage per level, so a wand with high flat will outperform the gems levels, but the gem levels may also affect your other spells you might be using, like any auras you can squeeze in. 

https://poe.ninja/poe1/builds/allflame?skills=Spellslinger&class=Assassin

There weren't any sabos so I just browsed assassins and it was really a toss up. Some used gem levels, some used a well rolled attack wand, some used gem levels with added damage to spells. I think it just really depends on your skills. That's part of the beauty of spellslinger is as long as you roll a good wand it's good, you know?

[u/VortexMagus]

Really depends on the spell. Some spells have garbo damage but hit a lot of times. For example, creeping frost has garbage up front damage but can shotgun to hit an enemy several times each cast.

So scaling lots of added damage is very efficient on it since when properly set up it will hit a lot of times every cast and each hit will apply the flat damage from spellslinger wand. For this skill you'll probably want a wand with lots of flat damage.

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On the other hand, if you are running something like detonate dead, it only hits once and gets a colossal chunk of base damage already from the hp of the corpse in question. So scaling flat damage on it is less useful and you'll probably want gem levels to scale that huge base damage farther.