Wands and resistsFollow

Keep going and your wand skill will rise to match your level. You have to keep in mind that unlike your spells, wand resist rate is impacted pretty much by your wand skill alone (I think), so it'll be underlevel until you use it a fair bit.

exactly, think of it as shooting a spell through an object, but instead of level differential you depend on you weapon skill to match the mobs you are fighting. Similarly to starting a new sword/staff at level 20 and leveling it from level 1, leveling that weapon will have a lot of misses until the skill level comes up.

Thank you my robed friends. I had not thought of it as a "weapon", now it all makes perfect sense.

Not true. Although it plays a very minimal role in the downfall of your foe, it is a great tool to help conserve that extra bit of mana at the end of a fight. Instead of finishing with a Frostbolt/Fireball, use the Wand, and save that amount of mana for the next fight, especially if it's a mob that runs. No point in using a spell on something that has no threat to you (unless he's running into a crowd of other mobs. Fire Blast ftw).

Went and did a bg with a pally friend. He was keeping me alive in a battle, but I had no mana, no evocation, no gems left (and I refuse to use pots in a bg). So I wanded. lol.