Wizards: Are they really that bad in the group game?

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by hiolpe, Nov 13, 2021.

  1. hiolpe Journeyman

    For the past year so I've been reading that wizards are really hurting :(

    I want to quantify that statement specifically for the group game. I don't raid :)

    According to Kizant's dps app, wizards can sustain 239k dps by just doing a simple Thaumaturgic vortex --> Claw of sontalak --> Ethereal brand --> Restless ice comet rotation. Obviously there's room for improvement.

    If we look at mages, they sustain 135k dps with a Riotious servant --> Chaotic pyroclasm --> Spear of molten komatiite --> Spear of molten arcronite rotation. I don't think the 135k dps includes their pet. But even if it does, I don't think it would surpass wizards 239k by a lot?

    Keeping the same rotation and activating burns, wizards achieve 700k dps (with arcane fury, spire, ITC, fury of the gods, frenzied devastation). Mages achieve 263 dps (with heart of skyfire, thaumaturge's focus, spire, ITC). I imagine mages gain a lot of additional dps with activated pet AA. This is for a 2 min burn.

    Some of my observations:
    1. 700k wiz burn with clear room for improvement doesn't seem bad. We can add 20% to account for forces, confluence, dicho, better rotation to bring them up to 840k dps.
    2. It looks like mages have lower burn dps even accounting for pets. I don't play a mage so I'm not sure if this rotation is a good baseline though.

    Some questions:
    1. Are melee pulling significantly more than 840k burn dps? More than ~300k w/out burning dps? If not it looks like wizards are on par with melee.
    2. When people say wizards are bad, does that only apply during raids when lag kills spell dps?

    For context, I want to see if I should reroll to a mage. I like my ports!
  2. Beimeith Lord of the Game

    My shadowknight still easily hits 400k without burning, and this is after losing between 50-100k from the recent riposte changes. He easily hits over 1 million when burning by himself. I am not that good of a shadowknight either.
  3. aozs Augur

    I have a bunch of box teams including a sk/enc/dru/wiz/wiz/wiz group and have tried every class at 115 except mage (sorry - can't tell you how they compare directly).

    For DPS comparisons I want to point out first that available support matters a LOT. For example it's not really useful to compare an unsupported wizard to fully supported melee, so that's something to keep in mind in these comparisons.

    I do think wizards are significantly weaker than all the other DPS. My wizard team is probably the highest aDPS team possible for a grouping wizard because each wizard can reliably proc covenant and I can pretty easily maintain ~100% uptime on the vortex debuff, which is absolutely massive. The DPS dropoff is severe if I neglect to keep it up.

    With all this in mind, the wizards are around 350-400k sustain and burn for around 1.2m, which is on the lower end of what my melee characters can do. Melee classes sustain 350-450k pretty easily without the ~60k inflation from covenant procs and the better ones burn upwards of 1.8-2m, all group geared.

    I also want to point out that wizards bring almost no aDPS - it's basically just mediocre synergy procs which many classes can't even consume, and the vortex debuff which gets consumed by small nukes and loses a lot of value. In contrast, something like a beastlord brings massive aDPS to a melee group and could effectively be contributing 600-700k sustain, on top of mana regen, pet tanking, and offhealing utility. Wizards are incredibly lacking in all the "extras".

    My general impression of wizard is that they're in a rough spot and significantly worse than all the other DPS. Mine do OK due to heavy inflation from group setup, but I think a wizard with little to no support will be an outlier on the low end for sustained DPS that brings moderate burn capability and not much else.
    Coagagin, Kialya and Tropi like this.
  4. Voxvixen Journeyman

    aozs is spot on. The difference is most staggering when you compare SK to wiz. SK have instant burn buttons that do way more dmg than wiz. SK get a surprising amount of adps and utility for the group as well. I dont mean to derail here, but the contrast between the two classes is STAGGERING. If you want to incinerate something is 1s, that should be the Wiz, not the tank!

    I maxed a couple wiz in the group game over the last year (all the evolves, proc augs, etc), and they still stink.

    So yes, they are that bad. Their dps is tolerable from some vantage points, but when every other class is bringing more utility and adps, their net contribution is really poor.
    Coagagin and Leerah like this.
  5. Sancus Augur

    The DPS webapp is a great tool for comparing rotations relatively. For comparing classes or absolute levels it depends heavily on the variables you choose, and it doesn't sound like the ones you chose are good for that purpose.

    Both classes could sustain and burst for more than that as far back as RoS, if not earlier, in groups. As others mentioned, most other classes (including non-DPS classes) can do well more than the numbers you quoted.
  6. hiolpe Journeyman

    Interesting, my SK only hits around ~175k sustained. That's with a 2H but no activated abilities, just spells. All T3 ToV but no type 18/19 augs or chase gear.

    Of course. For the mage vs wiz numbers I tried to keep everything equal with no support. But I agree this does get trickier with melee setups because support benefits melee more than casters.

    Got it. Would you say wizards fill the niche of decent boxed dps w/out 3rd party software. Sure melee can burn for ~2m but all the positioning is annoying.

    Great point. The only minor utility is ports but I'm sure others would say they're not even worth mentioning ;)



    For sure. I mainly wanted to compare wizards to mages with no adps as a baseline. From what I understand mages are in a medium spot so I wanted to compare that to wizards. Would you say wizards could sustain 240k dps with no adps or activated abilities in RoS? Because that's around what I put in ToV :(
  7. kizant Augur

    You mentioned Wizards in groups but then relied on single target solo estimates. Plus you went with a 2 minute parse for a burn when we don't have a consistent burn that lasts that long. You get 90s for second spire and twincasts before your rotation changes. Which is the other issue. You can't judge sustained based solely on not clicking things. It all contributes. Lastly, your sustained rotation really needs confluence and an insta nuke over a 2nd ethereal.

    A solo single target 90s burn for a Wizard right now should hit about 1 million and in RoS it was maybe 550k. It did drop a little recently with the proc nerf. Now if you're looking for solo sustained where you're just killing one at a time non-stop by yourself you should be seeing 320k+ and back in RoS it was probably closer to 170k. But in groups where you can AE it would obviously higher. I remember doing around 190k with some AEing and I'd need at least some ADPS in group to get over 200k for any length of time. Maybe 215k or so at most.

    Also, in the current web app you definitely need to increase the estimated Reckless Servant DPS when looking at mages. I haven't changed the default value in years. Mage single target burns are lower than Wizards but they're a lot better at AEing and in sustained. Melee and necros are good at everything.
    Coagagin, Ashigaru and hiolpe like this.
  8. Tappin Augur

    Threads like this don’t need to exist. Wizard DPS in fine in the group game. They need a bit of assistance on raids, but that’s a thread for another day. Any tank (who knows how to tank) can but up some decent numbers. Yes, that includes Wars. All threads like this to is get classes nerfed that already balanced.
  9. kizant Augur

    No. Wizards need help in the group game as well and based on the lack of attention in beta things will only be worse in ToL. You don't have to like every thread and a bunch of classes should be nerfed.
    Ssdar, Coagagin, IblisTheMage and 7 others like this.
  10. Tappin Augur

    They’re fine in the group, game comparatively speaking. If you want to argue about that, that’s fine. But there’s absolutely no need to drag other classes through mud on your naive crusade. That’s absolutely why thread shouldn’t exist in form it is.
  11. Tucoh Augur

    Can you show any evidence to back up that statement, even basic and simple proof?
  12. Mongol311 A really bad wiz

    You sir, have quite literally, not the faintest idea what you are talking about.
    Kalvenie, Dre., Toukan and 5 others like this.
  13. Vizier Augur

    This is a very interesting perspective and I tend to give this guy more credit than 99% of the ppl that say things about wizards on this forum. I box on a much smaller scale but I can tell we look at the same types of performance rates when it comes to these numbers.

    I am unwilling to take the steps needed to box melee toons effectively, this is just my own personal preference. So even though a crew of melee may out perform my Enc Mage Wiz combo, it's off the table for me. So, if nothing else, Wizard makes a lot of sense for a casual boxer in need of some easy to churn out dps.

    That said, being relegated to casual box class seems like a pretty bad state for a class like Wizard. And sadly, I think it may be even worse in the next expansion not better. Mob HP values scaled up more than our spell damage increased. Melee doesnt care, because their crit values are still rising, and they dps without spell limitations.
    hiolpe likes this.
  14. hiolpe Journeyman

    This thread is my attempt to check in with where wizards stand in terms of grouping. This is not a call to nerf other classes. Would the alternative be to DM kizant on discord? I really thought about that but 1. other grouping wizards would find this info useful and 2. other users might have valuable input. I’ve already gotten a lot of good info Beimeth, aozs, Sancus, kizant, and voxvixen. So it’s false to say my thread has no benefit. This is an information gathering thread.

    This seems to be where I’m at too. I can’t box melee effectively so I feel like mage or wiz is the way to go. Maybe necros are easier to box now with the consolidated dot changes? I haven’t seen anyone really talking about that but I might have missed it.
  15. Vizier Augur


    Ive found that Enc Mage Wiz is a very reliable combo if you are able to run 3 toons. If you only have 2 Mage and Wiz is probably the best 2 man combo for easy boxing. You get coth, ports, evac, pet tank and reasonable dps on both. Careful pulling will be needed, but that's expected. The wizard procs all the mages synergies, and the Mage can proc Evokers synergy at the start of the fight with the malo nuke.

    I dont see much point of necro in any of my box set ups. I use enchanter because the synergies hit both mage and wizard and enchanters have every tool. I main enchanter though so I am biased I suppose.
    hiolpe likes this.
  16. hiolpe Journeyman

    What's your spell rotation for the wizard? I would toss in cloudburst in my rotation but the root is annoying. And I don't have confluence because it's only available every min, not good for a macro.
  17. Elyssanda Bardbrain

    Qualifier for my statement, I am a max level raid bard.. I could /melody /autoattack /afk and hit at least 500k DPS I bet. I say I bet, as I have never done it so no clue.. but on a burn I have hit 1.08M and I'm not even the best bard out there. Normally I have no other ADPS in my group; Druid healer 2 mages 2 necros, or 4 mages, or 3 necros 1 mage.. and I'm half paying attention to what I'm doing because I'm also calling Dirge rotation, trying to figure out the best way to optimize Dirge when we have non-optimal numbers of bards show up on a given night.

    Anyway.. Yes I think even a group level wizzie should out DPS me at all times, especially on burns.

    Also, don't get me wrong.. I love being able to help my group KILL it on DPS.. I will happily sacrifice 200-400kdps for myself if it means my group gets an extra 150-300kdps per person, that far outstrips what I can do alone..
    Ssdar, Kialya, Yinla and 1 other person like this.
  18. Malpheroth Elder

    it's because composite can't be twincast
    Vizier likes this.
  19. Gialana Augur

    Mana Rep will trigger Evokers synergy, so that opens up a lot of ways to trigger the wizard's synergy with an enchanter in group.
  20. Fenthen aka Rath

    Can we move this to Class Discussion?