Wizzard rebalance required!

Playing on the new server made a wizard again for the ports!

Really getting disappointed by how much they lack in DPS compared to other classes!

Key Issues: Far too many enemies are very resistant in classic to all forms of magic especially POSKY. In classic they did not get any lure spells which they desperately could have used.
In kunark they get almost all lures / rains / weird faster casting lower damage nukes. At level 57 my mage got a 1200 dmg magic nuke + has the pet out with haste, the wizard has a baby nuke for 668 @ 3 seconds. when you get your final nuke at level 60 leveling is already over, they really could have gotten more dmg in between.

So heres the solution to the issue:
1.) give them an innate increase to spell damage (like felstrike for melee).
2.) concussion should be unresistable and scale with level. (they should be able to unload a full mana pool with out taking aagro when played effectively.
3.) Mana regen sheilds need to be increased by a few points, and also not fade when they have 0 damage left on them (have a counter on it and just leave it at 0) so you can actually use them!
4.) Review their spells , change cast delays and damage amounts, give lure spells at earlier levels, change resist checks on spells to be better, -30 etc . rather then 0 or -10 its their only source of damage it shouldnt be such a issue to get a resist.
5.) make rains not hit the orginal caster. (radical idea)

Ive played a wizard now through all expansions up to serpents , and i've been dissapointed on every single one , a caster that can only do damage should be top dps or really close on a medium term fight , melee should win out on long term.

Maybe even adjust the pets you can summon to take alot of mana, be fully resisant yet low health and have them do alot more damage so they can get decient dmg on long term also. (more radical ideas)

Oh while i'm at it, why the hell are enchanter summoned pets so terrible it would be nice to not only have the choice of charm or you suck =P Thanks for listening.

Also try to keep the feedback constructive, that would be nice.

I 100% agree making concussion unresitable would be great.

And Sky is terrible for ALL casters, not just wizzys. I'm convinced the reason we get flaiming sword is for those super resistant zones like sky.

Damage wise though I feel a well played wizard will be competitive or beat a mage on most fights. I've played both from classic to TSS and again from HOT to ROF. The mage is more sustain with some killer swarm pet burn, while the wizard is more efficiency and bigger bursts. On most raid parses the wizzys beat the mages hands down.

I think they already DID a damage and mana change to most spells years ago(thats why p99 and older classic sites have different values), so I dont know if doing another revamp is needed.

I feel both classes are viable just different styles of damage with Wizard wining the dps race in most instances.

I'm going to be honest, I don't think most of the suggestions will help very much. As the second poster said, the damage on the wizard on a per fight basis is quite good.

But one issue that most casters have while in a DPS role, is in how well they perform over a large timeframe covering dozens of fights. A wizard who out DPS's a mage I don't think can keep that going for four hours. But then again, that mage isn't keeping their optimum DPS for that long either.

Its not simply a factor of mana regeneration versus mana expenditure. Sure a machine or bot can keep optimum numbers indefinitely. But humans cannot, or I should be more specific, will not.

Caster DPS isn't the most involved process in the game by any means. You're going to droop at some point, tab out to check a feed or somesuch, chat in guildchat, reply to a text, etc. Sure all the other types of DPS do this too. But their active nature makes it less of a normalized thing.

As someone who's spent the last month pulling and CCing on a few classes, its very apparent when your casters are not at 100% and it happens alot more often then with groups with primarily melee dps.

Right now they're just not played as actively as the tank and puller. If they were to make any changes, it would have to be with that in mind. Some sort of overhaul that requires a bit more of an active input. But I doubt many would adapt to that well.

So I’ve been playing a wiz this TLP. One of the big problems is inconsistency with OTHERS. Tank not on top of aggro? 2 Ice Comets started at 80% will pull aggro. Then you look bad. Group pulling lots of light blues like say in Seb? Sometimes you’ll start that nuke at 80% and have it either not go off or would go off at 5%, so you cancel it. You end up with lots of mana, you look bad. Group pulling lots of yellows, like Chardok? You can pump 5-6 nukes into each mob. End up low mana and only able to pump 2-3 if the pulls get fast. Then you look bad.

Ideal situation for a wiz is good thank, chain pulling blues/whites. 2 Ice Comets per mob. Or a rain if they’re single pulls with no CC nearby. Then you look fantastic! Get an evac clicky so you don’t need to reserve mana to evac, that helps.

I think one of the biggest changes they could make that would help wizards and by extension, Druids and mages, is make rains not hit CCd mobs, like a pet. Rains are the biggest boon to both DSP and mana efficiency but the times you can use them with all the CC going on is too rare.

All they need is for concussion to be literally 30x more effective, much faster cast time, and unresitable. Though Ive been told The deagro still happens even when it is resisted.

that would balance them. they would still suck at sustained dps but could finally compete at burst dps

If it’s like Jolt, yes, the aggro reduction works on resist.

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Good call, wizards are the superior port class.

Yes, stuff after island 4 is all basically spell immune in sky and wizards are a waste of a raid spot there. They're also the top damage in the game on dragons/gods non cheater charm pet division.

Yes. most wizard spells are absolutely awful. Like, over 70% of them are 0pct casts. They're also harder to lvl up than most classes, but they shine when they're max level, geared, and well-played. It's a different experience than a lot of classes, best leveraged on a very artistic person.

I mean this is just asking for a buff that you don't really need. Apart from cheater charm pets and broken monks that should be deleted from the game, wizards are extraordinarily well tuned for endgame.

It effectively is unresistable. You get the same -hate whether it's resisted or not. If you're talking about unloading a full mana bar in a raid setting, your raid needs to use better tactics like starting with a SK harm touch or letting knights tank more trivial mobs. If it's a group setting, don't group with warriors.

You got a basic game mechanic of a class-defining ability wrong. This probably just isn't the class for you. Wizards aren't easy to play well, that doesn't mean they're not worth playing and playing well. Successful wizards are very passionate about wizardry and are very thorough in their research etc. In Classic, Kunark, Luclin, early PoP, and TSS+ until at least the Kunark remakes they're a top DPS class, if you're not competing to top parses in a raid setting it's on you. If ya wanna talk about how they're difficult to lvl up that's another story but that's just kind of what comes with the territory. It's a class that requires a big investment upfront before you start to see returns but pays off big in the end apart from the lvl 70 era when the game is unplayably broken.

I played a wizard box all the way through Phinny. The wizard was on the same account as my mage. There were some expansions where the wizard was OK but overall the mage was much, much better. This time around I'd rather have a druid.

I think wizards should get innately higher mana regen - maybe make their meditate skill caps far higher per level than other characters or something. They also probably need additional passive always on extra mana regen too - or perhaps just make wizards have a multiplier applied to the normal mana regen they would get - such as 1.5 or 2 times normal regen amount that is always on.

Calm down, Wizards are top DPS Velios on

Can I just say I love that the OP says that making rains not hit the caster is maybe too radical an idea in the same post where he says wizards should be able to dump a full mana bar without worrying about aggro?

Necro (even without a charm pet) is much better DPS on gods/dragons than a wizard (or a monk, for that matter). I've played Necro and Wizzy and other than Naggy/Talendor I could beat any wizard (or monk) on any fight on a necro easy peasy. The wizard's resists and lack of good aggro control makes the necro a much much better classic/Kunark DPS class. Even in Velious I could beat wizards on many fights. Playing a wizard this time around and missing the necro DPS. Just too many resists on the Wizard. I do know they are an "investment" class, and they will get better.

If you're getting a bunch of resists your guild has bad bards/debuffers/raid leadership. If you're pulling aggro your guild has bad tanks/raid leadership.

Really depends on the fight and if you have a bard or not.

Combined (6): VP_Dragons in 1076s, 959.09K Damage @891
1. Wizard +Pets = 44.49K@53 in 824s
2. Wizard = 42.47K@46 in 917s {XXX}
3. Monk = 40.72K@47 in 864s
4. Monk = 37.06K@45 in 823s
5. Necro = 32.78K@47 in 687s {X}
6. Wizard = 31.96K@51 in 617s {X}
7. Necro +Pets = 30.16K@50 in 594s
8. Necro = 27.88K@40 in 684s {XXX}
9. SK = 27.07K@36 in 747s

Even fully debuffed resists are a thing, necro's have negatives to resists built into their spells

Only some of them. The fire dots are -100. The life drain dots are -200 magic, but are quite inefficient damage/mana. Splurt is -100 and it's great on any fight where you can get the full duration. On shorter fights it's crap since the damage is so heavily backloaded. None of the poison or disease dots have resist modifiers. Envenomed Bolt doesn't have a resist modifier and it's the best necro damage spell until Luclin, and in the top 3 until Gates.

Lol, file this as resolved if your big complaint is concussion resists...

oof... no wonder the devs ignore us so often.

People seriously underestimate the power of the lifetap in classic. Fights are so quick who cares if it is mana inefficient. When only 2-3 rounds of fire dots tick down on a dragon before it is dead you have plenty of mana left over to cast taps. I can, and have, taken top DPS on every classic fight but Naggy, and beaten others by a fair margin, and yes, we had good DPS players. I didn't even load EB for anything other than Inny. Damage that lands > damage that gets resisted.

Other than in Sky, I'd be pretty surprised if your wizards were getting resists 50% of the time or more with full debuffing.