Viability of Wizards as raid and group DPS in PoP and beyond

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by TLP Addict, Jan 18, 2019.

  1. TLP Addict Augur

    Curious for peoples opinions on Wizards in raid and group dps setting in PoP and beyond.

    Can they keep pace with melee dps on bosses assuming they aren't too resistant etc?
  2. HoodenShuklak Augur

    Well in POP they can DPS on raid bosses with the best of them. There's never a clear 100% winner since things like discs matter. But wizards are consistently solid top tier DPS.

    In groups, everything kind of pales to ENC pets, which set the bar so high. When they have good gear they are good dps, but group dps simply isn't their forte. That being said, they get the best AE damage spells and during POP there are still AE groups.
  3. Grebyr Lorekeeper

    A raid geared and active wizard pulls their weight in group dps.
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  4. malaki Augur

    Being a wizard in PoP is fine, but it's just before the hard times for casters. Once you're deep into the 65 expansions through to level 75 it's much, much better to be a melee.
  5. RainbowCane Elder

    I currently do between 8-11k DPS in groups sustained. That number might be a bit higher in outdoor zones where I can mount. Wizards are fine group DPS especially once you have more then one cooldown. SoD marks the beginning of casters having a toolbox to match melee's burns. With the advent of second spire, fury of the gods, focus arcanum, and the almighty twincast, we are not stuck waiting on our one burn to come up every hour and a half.
  6. Lion of God Elder

    Wizards are always viable. It's important to keep in mind that even if a wizard isn't in the top 5-10 on damage done, a wiz isn't essentially deadweight. A Wizard is capable of unloading more damage within a short period of time than any other DPS class.

    Though a melee might consistently do 200 dps throughout a fight, and thus over the course of 1000 seconds end up doing 200000 total damage. A wizard might do 1000 dps for 90 secs, doing 90000 damage (45% of the melees total damage) then go oom.

    After such a fight, one may look at the parse and go, woah, look, melee dominated! Casters suck! However, perhaps the wizard dumping their mana during that 90 seconds is what took down adds, whom, if werent absolutely destroyed, would've murdered the healers (or something.)

    Do I think wizards should be able to do more consistent damage—yes. But I understand the logic that they were designed with. I dont necessarily agree with it. But it is what it is.

    As far as group DPS goes, wizards are a bit lacking, especially compared to say, a mage. But a good wizzie is always going to be preferable to a bad (anything else.)
  7. Machentoo Augur


    Uh, no. This doesn't actually happen.

    Sure, sometimes wizards will go oom and stop dpsing late in a fight. But unless it's a fight with major melee debuffs, you won't ever see them doing 5x the dps of top melees, even for a short burst at the start of the fight. Or even 2x. In most cases, for most fights in most of the expansions PoP-->SoF, while they are decent DPS you won't see them ahead of the top melee dps at any point, even when they are burning as hard as they can. There are a few exceptions, but they are exceptions, not the rule.
  8. malaki Augur

    The 65-75 expansions melee (particularly monk) burst dps is way higher than wizard burst.
  9. Lion of God Elder

    The numbers were just to give a clear theoretical example, I said might. But yes, a wiz can do a ton more DPS than a melee over a short duration of time. Even the 5x figure can be reached occasionally when RNG is on your side. It isn't super rare to see it on the parse / in the logs for a wizard who actually knows how to burn.

    Source: The DPS meter I have doesn't show me data from the start of a fight to the end. It shows me the DPS of a character from the time that character starts hitting its target to the time that target dies. So I'm quite familiar with how much DPS a wizard can do in short bursts (compared to melees).
  10. Lion of God Elder

    But to be fair I shouldn't of used 90 seconds as a base duration of time in that example. 30ish -45ish would be more accurate for the numbers I gave.
  11. HoodenShuklak Augur

    Probably the biggest difference to consider is playstyle.

    If you're a rogue raiding you have to do a lot more on the keyboard. A wizard is far less actions per minute. And that's not a trivial difference. Some people want to be moving a lot. Some people chat a lot. It's easy to see when a rogue is slacking. It's hard to tell when a wizard is trying their best.
  12. Hadesborne Augur

    Unfortunately, this is not the case anymore post-POP. Monks and Zerkers already have a MASSIVE lead on the wizard before the wizard lands his first spell. The Wizards always ends up playing catch up to the rediculous burst of the monks. It is when the monks short term massive burst abilities wear off, that the wizard starts to catch up, but since all melee have been buffed compared to the original live game back in the day, the mob is already dead. Wizards and sometimes Mages (in certain expansions) still come the closest of the caster classes to competing with the still OVER-tuned melee dps classes. I still think that the slight adjustment to the original melee buff was not enough as even in SoD, you see melee blowing out most caster classes on the DPS meters consistently.
  13. RainbowCane Elder

    I consistently parse between #1-4th on raid fights, as a wizard, in SoD, against monks / zerkers / mages. I'm not sure what the concern is here.
  14. RainbowCane Elder

    There are several factors that go into our ability to achieve top-end DPS.

    First and foremost - mana pool. If you are unable to maintain your burn rotation for the entirety of the fight, you are gonna fall off the meters. My rotation is simple, Eth fire -> Cloudburst -> Eth Ice -> Cloudburst.

    The second most important thing is maximizing ADPS available to you. The enchanter and bard in my group are trained to hit their cooldown's when they see MGB Auspice fire off. They are also maintaining twincast aura / mana flare aura / and the appropriate songs.

    Next comes burn cooldowns. Since AA revamps have done away with the different Fury lines, this is fairly simple. I hit Silent Casting, followed by a hotkey that hits Frenzied Dev, Fury of the Gods, Focus Arcanum, and Second Spire. Finally, I trigger Twincast and start going to town.

    Lastly, always be casting. If your burn left you light on mana, use both Harvests / Rod + Forceful Rejuv for another harvest. If you have a necro make sure they are mind wracking. Have your enchanter click their robe on cooldown, convince a beastlord to give you focused paragon (good luck). Wizards do a large % of their damage potential during their initial burns, but that doesn't mean they should slack afterwards. I usually go into my low mana rot with Wildmagic / Chaos Combustion until I proc GoM's. My goal is to always have 0% mana as the target dies.
  15. malaki Augur

    He's talking about PoP and the expansions following it. It gets real bad for casters in that era and doesn't really correct until the level 75 expansions.
  16. Aeon New Member

    I am on Agnarr and notice wizards rarely in the top. Usually rogues and monks. However, not always many wizards around, sometimes none in the raid so there's that too. Beyond? I have no clue. I haven't noticed any DPS problems for wizards however and never once heard leaders complain about another one in the guild.
  17. Boze TLP complaint factory


    I mean, moar deeps = dead boss = less time tanking = clerics heal less = clerics don't need focused paragon?

    Right now in SoD Wiz are extremely "viable" as OP asked. Awesome to see silks put up top dps on bosses. Need more data, and I'm curious to see how it balances out once everyone has their new weapons/foci, but it's looking like Wiz/Mag can be more consistently on top with a high floor, while Monk/Rogue/Zerk can spike up to the top range as well, but look like they have much greater variance depending on what discs are up (seems like they have a lower floor without discs).

    Example burn (though looks like I didn't catch the fight super well since everything past #5 seems off):
    Arch Magus Vangl in 62s, 10011k @161466 | #1 MAGE + pets 1080k@(19277 in 56s) | #2 WIZ 1041k@(21683 in 48s) | #3 MONK 767k@(15341 in 50s) | #4 ROG 750k@(13156 in 57s) | #5 WIZ 640k@(15997 in 42s) | #6 MONK 389k@(7203 in 54s) | #7 WAR 374k@(6561 in 57s) | #8 ZERK 349k@(6122 in 57s) | #9 ZERK 336k@(6453 in 52s) | #10 ROG 332k@(5928 in 56s)

    Example longer fight, the 4 scryers, where I think manapool comes into play for Wiz as well.
    Combined: Head Scryer Oomk in 301s, 47272k @157049 | #1 MAGE + pets 3645k@(12397 in 294s) | #2 MONK 3240k@(10871 in 298s) | #3 MONK 3037k@(10434 in 291s) | #4 ROG 2546k@(8600 in 296s) | #5 WIZ 2415k@(8215 in 294s) | #6 ZERK 2234k@(7497 in 298s) | #7 BST + pets 2072k@(6999 in 296s) | #8 ROG 1851k@(6273 in 295s) | #9 ZERK 1717k@(5839 in 294s) | #10 ROG 1681k@(5717 in 294s)

    For OP, considering post-PoP, silks are generally pretty behind MeleeQuest until SoF, where Mages start to really shine. Though I remember a Necro topping parse in early-OoW before everyone got new weapons.
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  18. Karhar Dream Crusher

    Wizard dont get to burn as much as mage :(