More wizard nerfs? Really?

All this mumbo-jumbo aside (most of which I wouldn't understand off hand), I'm sick of losing guild members over these nerfs. The nerfs last September upset me enough I don't even mind that I primarily play a cleric on raids now (Lure of the Siren's Song should work on anything we can mezz in addition to the level cap - they destroyed its primary purpose which annoyed me greatly doing CC on the first Arx raid), we lost a ranger for a few months over some change later last year, and we lost our most skilled necro over the nerfs earlier this year (though he may be considering trying things out when they address what they did).

I'm happy they at least fixed the AA conflict issue (and applaud them for the speed on it), but this mana cost addition was pointless. The team really needs to thinks "Is this fun?" before making changes, sometimes, or if it is worth the backlash. For example, perhaps successor AAs with a mana cost that are situationally better while sharing a lockout and not replacing this line would have been a better idea, keeping this line viable, while slightly lesser upgrades to this line could happen at 110. I'm starting to talk about a class I know almost nothing about though, so I'll stop there.

At least they gave knights a boost they desperately needed (for raids at least), so it's not all nerfs. Before that boost our raid knights to me as raid lead felt like TBS-era hybrids. (Say what you will about difficulty going down; players die MUCH faster today than they did back then... my three second divine aura used to be able to save people that pulled boss aggro.)

I don't want to lose any more active raiders over these nerfs though. It concerns me. I recall a few years ago at SoE live the general approach to retuning was meant to be gradual over time, but that was about wizards specifically at the time I was corrected about.

I rambled on more than I intended, but the tl;dr gist of what I'm saying is that they really need to consider the fallout before pushing something like this in. It has been pretty much universally mocked openly in my guild, and that is unfortunate because I think the devs have done amazing things with the limited resources they've had recently.

The Warriors would disagree about no one getting a nerf with the knight boost lol.

I think you're paying attention to only the few players who complain like you do. "The Warriors" are fine with all tanks tanking like tanks - we just wonder where the rest of that patch is, to replace the heft that "more tanky" had on the warrior side of the balance.

Mage earth pets got hammered about 8 months ago iirc, multiple times. It sucked. I cant believe wizards got nerfed lol.

I guess they are trying to make you adapt to have to relearn how to play with what you have so you dont get bored or?

Once they beat down the mage earth pet I realized the devs were not wrapping the game around what classes were , but were nerfing classes to stay tuned to what they developed. I just think they should be putting out product that causes them to have to upscale classes not nerf them. In my opinion if they have to nerf classes well..devs arent developing expansions correctly. Its sort of a bad business model to be honest. Ahh it is just a game though right? Like playing too much scrabble or something, you get tired of it but eventually come back, play again. = bad business model .... cmon guys pull your heads out!!!

IDK about comming back - I still see raid guilds actively recruiting mages...

It was on Sul 1 or 2 and it was not a self parse he beat all the wizards because all but one was under 100k while that one was120k again not a self parse. This was the week that forces where broke so the fight went much longer. Not sure why the wizards where that low as I wasn't there for the raid. My guess is he had an enchanter and Druit no Bard. It's not a bad parse actually for the event. They may have gone for the achivment that calls for a burn at 40ish % which really slows the fight down again not sure because he would have been holding back along with the wizards for the first 5/8 of the fight. Now if you where to take a parse from Health 1 he would do some thing like 2 or 2.5 times what a wizard does. Of course that may be an over statement. I'll ask him for one of his self parses on that event next week and if he doesn't mind I may share it.

I do 180k+ over 700s shrugs

Lies I tell you lies. not on single target

Seems like the last page or two of this thread has devolved into a DPS war. Or even two. Zerkers vs everyone else, and Wizards vs other Int casters. To that end, I think it's important to keep a few things in mind:

1) "Pure" DPS classes are as such because they add little, if anything, to a group or raid beyond their damage. They have almost no utility and no secondary roles. Wizards, Rogues, Monks, and Berzerkers fit this description and it has been so (for the most part) for the majority of those classes' lifetime in the game. These classes are supposed to parse higher in most situations because it is the only thing they do.

2) Between the pure DPS classes, there should be some small room for variations on encounters. One class should never "always" be on top. But again, in most encounters, these classes should always be on top.

3) All of the "secondary" DPS classes have some kind of additional utility. Be it a pet, a beneficial spell, more survivability, or ADPS. Because of this additional utility, they should parse lower than the pure DPS classes in almost all situations.

4) Group or solo capabilities should absolutely play some role in this question of balance, albeit a small one. To pull an example that may be unpopular or rustle some jimmies, a Mage's pet makes a superb tank in lieu of a plate tank class in group content. You can't tune the entire game exclusively for raid encounter balance. Some small attention to group balance must be considered.

5) Because of #1 and #2, DPS classes need (and will likely receive in the next expansion) some fine tuning.

I don't think anyone really "wants" nerfs for other classes. When someone's class gets the bat, emotions can spill over and people can forget that we're all here to have a good time. Pointing fingers doesn't do anything to help the players or the game, it just makes for interesting reading on the forums.

In regards to the Wizard force nukes, I think most agree that the mana cost needs some tuning. Reducing the cost to 200-400 would be much more appropriate. Wizards are upset that they effectively had an entire line of AA's ripped off the table. At ~1000+ mana a cast, it's just not worth it.

This may get addressed, it may not. We can't see what plan the Developers have for the next expansion. This could very well be a precursor to an overarching plan for the Wizard class that ends up being hugely beneficial. Only time will tell.

Tank classes should be able to tank. When basically none of our knights could reliably tank Lucia's adds though for example in Arx and even warriors would get steamrolled with extras, it got out of hand (and that is WITH a decent amount of Arx gear to boot). Did the warriors lose any ability vs. mobs? No? Then they were not nerfed. Even Vim/Vigor ramp would one shot some of our stronger knights. It's still dangerous post nerf mind you, but nothing as catastrophic as it used to be. It is true I have no perspective on the group game, but if warriors lack utility there that is a warrior thing to fix, not an excuse to make it so knights can't even tank.

This notion that a class shouldn't even be able to perform its key function is ridiculous. In my view the entire notion of pure classes is broken, but that is the way the game was designed. As a bonus, our knight turnout went up after that. Gee, when tanks are actually able to tank they log on more.

In any case, this topic is about wizards and that's another topic entirely. The solution to class imbalance isn't sweeping nerfs to existing ability many months/years later (in effect punishing raid forces that happen to have a lot of that class too) but instead relative balancing when the next expansion comes, in my opinion.

As I said though, I admire they at least fixed the wasting procs thing with this nerf. Now if they could get around to necros so maybe just maybe the one I knew that quit would consider seeing how they fix the damage they have done.

I, too, am glad they promptly fixed the issue of wasted procs that rendered the force AAs essentially useless. I had expected it to take until the August patch and was pleasantly surprised to see it handled so quickly.

As for your other wish, the last raiding necro hasn't yet left the game. Given how long ago the nerfs went in and how quiet they've been about a schedule for "adjusting" necro dots, it seems they're waiting for those last few holdouts to go away. Every other class's dots they adjust first (making those dots situationally desirable) exacerbates the debuff limit issue, and no one likes working as hard as a necro has to work to do competitive dps only to discover their spells are bouncing because they've hit the limit. They need to quit swinging the nerf bat and finish what they started.

I'm going to lay down some knowledge on you since of all the mages here you are the most annoying.

This spell is unfocusable. That means that the chance to crit for this spell is 42% which is lower than any other class. It also means that the damage during a crit is stuck at the base percentage. IN ADDITION to these sizeable nerfs it costs 40% of our main nuke ethereal skyblaze. That is too high of a price to pay and we are arguing for the price to be lowered.

Maybe you just suck.

The main nerf that wizards have been subjected to in the past 7 months that is greater than all of the other 7 combined is the fact that twincast consumes 2 counters instead of one. Effectively we are now completely dependent on adps. The fact that your wizards dps high is not just because they are skilled. It is most likely because you have top of the line optimized coordinated adps.

This statement is idiotic. Thanks to increased reliability on adps individual skill is less meaningful than it was before. Not every guild has top of the line adps. The ones that do will outparse the ones that don't.

Zerkers are more adps independant and they burst and sustain substantially higher than wizards. What you are effectively saying here is that you've squeezed out every available optimization and wizards are still doing substantially worse than zerkers. Does that sound balanced to you? We are not asking for zerkers to be nerfed. We just want to stop being nerfed ourselves when our sole utility is DPSing.

Go be wrong and spread your oversimplified and vitriolic arguments somewhere else. You're an embarrassment to your guild. Since you have apparently failed to understand the meaning of my firing broadsides statement I was referencing quotes like this

Wizards and mages have a lot in common. What happens to one usually befalls the other (rain nerfs beam nerfs, nerfs to adps that we share like chromatic haze). Your entire post is not only wrong but is a monument to counter productivity.

That's your opinion, and I can respect that. May even be an opinion shared by the developers. I have to disagree, though, with your balance philosophy, and maybe also with your assessment of utility.

First off, I don't raid and I never will. Hell, I don't even group, except with my boxes. So I don't really care, other than on principle.

For one, I don't believe that an imbalance in one aspect of the game can be properly addressed by creating a different imbalance in another aspect. A little funny to see an enchanter arguing that being good in a group should mean being bad in raids.

Without getting too long-winded or off-topic, I think there are just too many classes and/or not enough diversity of content. So the only other option for trying to achieve balance is that there's significant overlap. From my understanding, like half the classes in the game do little in a raid setting other than damage, plus the overflow from any classes whose roles are filled to the needed capacity. And pretty much everyone wants more DPS, and can make some argument as to why they need it more than anyone else.

"Pure DPS" is rather arbitrary. There's no particular reason for it. Classes that think they're pure DPS mostly want it that way so they can better make their case for being the best DPS. But if the result of that is making other classes undesirable in a large, important facet of the game, you need to look at other options. All classes should be desired in raids, and in groups.

I don't know what, if anything, the Force changes will do to balance. I suspect it's probably not much of anything, really. Seems sort of a pointless, "change stuff to change stuff because we sort of think we have a plan" kind of thing. But if the devs do have some goal they're trying to achieve, they should share it with the players. For us to say they should retract or change the nerf without knowing what the goal is...seems equally pointless.

I'd suggest you re-test this.

Just... no.

I agree with some of what you said (like the mana cost being too high) and disagree with other parts, but I think it's important to at least include correct information when trying to educate someone else.

FD + second spire + glyph of courage
crit rate: 42%+51%+15% = 108%
crit dmg: 100% + 160% (Second Spire IV) + 80% Frenzied Devastation (Frenzied Devastation XIX)
dmg = 116877 this does not change so there is no need to average it

/tell Manaelil Manaelil -vs- Combined: Combat Dummy Azia: -- DMG: 3493676 -- DPS: 13234 -- Scaled: 13234 -- DirDmg: 3493676 -- % dmg as normal: 9.8% -- % dmg as critical: 90.2% -- Non-crit rate: 42.9% -- crit rate: 57.1% -- Attempts: 49 -- Hits: 49 -- Accuracy: 100% -- Avg Hit: 71299 -- Max hit: 116877 -- DMG to PC: 0

The important number being crit rate: 57.1%. It used to crit 100% of the time during a burn. In other words this is a nerf of 42.9% in terms of crit rate leaving my initial premise largely correct.

No burns

nominal crit rate: 42% (base)
crit dmg boost: 100% (base)

dmg: 103891

/tell Manaelil Manaelil -vs- Combined: Combat Dummy Azia: -- DMG: 2717400 -- DPS: 7720 -- Scaled: 7720 -- DirDmg: 2717400 -- % dmg as normal: 19.7% -- % dmg as critical: 80.3% -- Non-crit rate: 61.1% -- crit rate: 38.9% -- Attempts: 54 -- Hits: 54 -- Accuracy: 100% -- Avg Hit: 50322 -- Max hit: 103891 -- DMG to PC: 0

dmg boost: 116877/103891 = 1.12 or 112%
crit boost: 57.1% - 38.9% = 18.2% (significant but could be statistical noise with only 50 casts)

18.2 is significantly less than the 58% crit boost this ability enjoyed before.
A 12% boost in damage is negligable.

Leaving the initial premise I was arguing largely true. These abilities are largely unfocusable whereas they were focusable before. I don't like to debate minor details and in my book mostly true = true.

I never said this. I said " Group or solo capabilities should absolutely play some role in this question of balance, albeit a small one." It's also worth pointing out that some group utility translates into raid utility. Using pets again as an example, in some dire FUBAR situation a mage pet could off-tank a raid trash-mob, even if it's only for a few seconds for a true OT to get things back in place. A wizard will go insta-splat the moment something sneezes on him, as will most other pure DPS classes. A Necromancer can provide some mana to their group. A Berzerker swings his axe and shouts, 'Mana?! Swing harder and stop wearing a dress!'

Using Enchanters as an example, we are firmly in the secondary DPS/ADPS tier along with a few other classes. An Enchanter will never equal the DPS of the "pure" classes in the first tier. We won't out-dps a well played Mage (unless there's something horribly wrong). It's a pure numbers game, and the Enchanter class is tuned to cap out at a very specific point we can never reach beyond. In return, we get some very essential caster ADPS abilities, and, uh, crack, haste, and crowd control (lawl). I'm obviously leaving out the group/solo game for this entry, because Enchanter is very much a unique case in that regard.

The classes that are pure DPS want the best DPS because they don't do anything else. Not in groups, not on raids. Their one and only function is to stab/explode/punch things into oblivion. Their output is boosted to reflect this. Group vs Raid balance also comes into play here. If a mage (Pet, modrods, CoTH) has the same, or almost the same, damage output as a Wizard... why would I ever choose a Wizard over a Mage? Teleport to bind? I'm picking on Wizards vs Mages here because it's the relevant thread argument, but it also applies to other match-ups in the "pure" dps vs "secondary" dps tiers.

That's EQ, for better or for worse, and always has been. Nowadays almost every class fills some sort of needed ADPS/Utility/Healer role if they are not pure DPS. The one's that don't are in the "Secondary" DPS tier and have a boosted DPS output to reflect this (Mages, for example). Obviously some classes are inevitably going to be needed more than others. That's also EQ. I'm not saying this part is right or wrong from a design standpoint, I'm saying that's the way it is.

It kind of seems like you want every class to have their cake and pew pew with it too. That would be fine, I guess, but then we wouldn't be playing Everquest. It's an imperfect game for an imperfect world, and without it we'd have nothing to come to the forums and scream about

The numbers from my previous post are inaccurate. I'll parse again w/ 5x the casts.

First off I'm on my phone so I'm not editing out all that crap to point out the lines of text. Are you really suggesting that there is only your way Of useing manaburn? If so then your saying that we as raid force don't know how to beat content quickly or that we are doing something wrong by min maxing time? Honestly you must be missing some information because I'll guarantee you know jack about how fast we raid. Second I am now more then ever convinced that mages should have more utility options and I am frimly against them getting anything more then a slight DPS (around 20k) boost to there spells. So no, you can not be O.P. Like wizards. Of course if that's my opinion it must be correct.....

So now that wizards are an aDPS class, by your own definition, they are no longer a "pure" DPS class and thus should fall behind in raw DPS. I'll pass on a go about "magician utility" on a raid ... or being a "secondary" DPS class in your eyes ...

Considering that in current content, even rangers, berserkers, wizards or mages themselves make decent tanks (if raid equipped), and that pet power overall was reduced quite a bit due to people complaining that magicians were soloing too well and too valuable for groups (and in return, we received no boost for the raidplay), don't you think that this argument looses a significant amount of truth the more often it gets brought up? Also, I'd say a wizard brings as much "ultility" to a group as a mage, albeit in a different flavour and with a lot more DPS (especially on short fights, like trash mobs, where the mage has to debuff the mobs lest they resist his spells - a problem wizards don't seem to have).

I agree fully with you on this one. As we, the mage community, have stated many times throughout this sorry thread (and others) - the nerf to wizard AA nukes WAS way over the top. especially the part about eating charges from ITC and FD. Benefit of the doubt to the devs this was an oversight and fingers crossed the mana cost of the AA nukes will get reduced to a more manageable level. Nontheless, it speaks volumes how SOME wizards are arguing (especially that one "wizard" comparing his DPS to a bard's) that the class was "broken". Or the faction that always points out magicians wanted to be the be-all-end-all of all EQ history, with pets able to smash hulk and nukes to sink continents, while simultaneously stating that, in their opinion, wizards should rule all fights because being a "pure" DPS class (with a distinct surplus of utility *cough*) they deserve to be better than other Classes, like those other INT garbage. AND especially those melees who don't even spec into intelligence at all! It's this kind of arrogance that makes people across most classes grind their teeth.

I think I'll give the example of "Rains", which are also unfocussable (not affected by elemental foci or critchance, but by critdamage, the same way as your AA nukes) and have a now hardcapped critchance of 40%. Also, pls bear in mind that wizards and other classes are balanced differently, with wizards not critting as often but for a much higher bonusdamage than other classes, resulting in an approximately equal power gain of critical strikes overall. In this context, you will agree that other classes, which have higher basic critical chance baseline are, in fact, higher (58% e.g. for magicians).

As for the cost itself: Pls see my answer to gotwar, or ANY OTHER POST WHERE I MENTIONED WIZARD AA NUKES IN THIS THREAD.

While my guild is good, I doubt it is better in aDPS coordination than Machin Shin or RoI. Thanks for the compliment though. Your class being dependant to aDPS is not a problem that hits only your class. Pls be so kind and talk to your berserkers, rogues, rangers, monks, necromancers, magicians and beastlords on occassion.

So "Casters" (not even caring to point out wizards being on top of this group) topping every parse between VoA and TDS and melees struggling hard to even keep remotely in touch sounded fair to you? You are actually arguing that now, that melees have received their VERY HARD EARNED AND LONG OVERDUE boost and are actually competetive enough to actually be of use again was BALANCED? I guess this goes a long way to show how (some) wizards see this game.

Oh yeah, I am sure EVERY class wants to stop being nerfed. How about you guys stop crying for other classes to be nerfed, also?

About wizard's only utility being DPS, I guess you forgot Teleportation, Snare, Root, Knockback and Stun. Pls go read up on your abilities. Oh, wait, you mean it's your only "raid utility" - oh welcome abord the same wagon as literally ANY OTHER DPS CLASS is on.

Why, thank you! Being personally attacked by your kind actually seems like a commendation.

And now: Shoo, shoo, back under the bridge with you!
Also, it's dangerous to go alone - take this:

No, I am not saying that Machin Shin has no idea what to do. I say that either YOU have no idea, or your timeframes are completely different. I assume that if you don't use multiple mana burns on "longer events" - your "longer" events are signigicantly shorter that other guild's "longer events", I estimate your guild rarely sees events with a duration longer than 10 minutes, does it? I've bolded the one part of your post that wizards have been very vocal about for years, just for the lols. Also, pls say hello to Fehu from me

250 casts each instead of 50

/tell Manaelil Manaelil -vs- Combined: Combat Dummy Azia: -- DMG: 10369539 -- DPS: 6235 -- Scaled: 6235 -- DirDmg: 10369539 -- % dmg as normal: 22.5% -- % dmg as critical: 77.5% -- Non-crit rate: 57.6% -- crit rate: 42.4% -- Attempts: 250 -- Hits: 250 -- Accuracy: 100% -- Avg Hit: 41478 -- Max hit: 77918 -- DMG to PC: 0

/tell Manaelil Manaelil -vs- Combined: Combat Dummy Azia: -- DMG: 18956347 -- DPS: 11447 -- Scaled: 11447 -- DirDmg: 18956347 -- % dmg as normal: 8.6% -- % dmg as critical: 91.4% -- Non-crit rate: 40.4% -- crit rate: 59.6% -- Attempts: 250 -- Hits: 250 -- Accuracy: 100% -- Avg Hit: 75825 -- Max hit: 116877 -- DMG to PC: 0

crit rate boost: 59.6% - 42.4% = 17.2
dmg boost: 116877/77918 = 1.5 or 150%

The point I was trying to make 17.2 << 58%
150% << 340%

Fury of Kerafyrm and Arcane Fury have no effect on the Forces.