I remember seeing a post about black wolf being useless for wizards with a bard in group, but I cannot find it now. The post lead me to conclude BW was most useful for magicians and myself. Now I am reading (guild forums) that it's not even worth using for them either: "Using Group Spirit of the Black Wolf, Enchanter Third Spire, Mage/Wizard First Spire, Fierce Eye, or Illusions of Grandeur in conjunction is pointless" Any druids have solid current (RoF/Shadow of Fear) stacking information about BW ?
There used to be actual stacking issues with wizards, but their disc got changed to allow the buffs to stack. There's no actual buff stacking issues between any of these. It's mostly just one portion (Chance to Crit Nuke) being higher, but in a different slot to not prevent buff blocking. IoG is the only one that provides both effects better. Except for IoG, these do not last nearly as long as group black wolf, so even if you pop it at the start, it will still be there once the self and bard buffs fade. With an Enc on longer fights, you might want to cast group black wolf around the time IoG is fading. So black wolf is far from pointless, but won't provide benefit over an ENC's group burn disc. (Edited down to just possible conflicting parts) [32498/16203] Group Spirit of the Black Wolf Classes: DRU/254 8: Increase Chance to Critical Nuke by 9% and Increase Critical Nuke Damage by 100% of Base Damage [16214] First Spire of Arcanum Classes: WIZ/254 2: Increase Chance to Critical Nuke by 14% [16263] First Spire of Elements Classes: MAG/254 2: Increase Chance to Critical Nuke by 21% [16278] Third Spire of Enchantment Classes: ENC/254 11: Increase Chance to Critical Nuke by 7% [12519] Fierce Eye Effect 5: Increase Chance to Critical Nuke by 10% and Increase Critical Nuke Damage by 10% of Base Damage [38603] Illusions of Grandeur Classes: ENC/254 1: Increase Chance to Critical Nuke by 10% and Increase Critical Nuke Damage by 150% of Base Damage
Not exactly. No wizard worth their salt uses their first spire. They use their second spire, which is a crit damage mod, because they have Prolonged Destruction for crit chance, and the crit damage mod is much higher, so shouldn't be used together. [16217] Second Spire of Arcanum Classes: WIZ/254 Skill: Abjuration Target: Self Beneficial: Blockable Casting: 0s Duration: 90s (15 ticks), Extend: No 2: Increase Critical Nuke Damage by 250% of Base Damage Text: You focus on the second spire of arcanum. Bold emphasis mine. When it comes to modifying spells, the code is a lot more restrictive than melee. You can have any number of "Increase Chance to Critical Nuke" mods, provided they are on different slots, and they will stack, but going over 100% crit chance does nothing extra for you- 100% of the time, you crit, is 100% of the time, you crit. With that in mind, all of the crit chance mods that Illa listed stack with each other, except wizard and mage first spires, but they're self only, so there's no way to have both on one character anyway. Activated critical nuke damage modifiers do not stack, even if they are on different slots, and do not overwrite. Only the highest modifier on you will take effect. Since the introduction of spires, the primary burn of wizards has been second spire of arcanum. They paired this with Prolonged Destruction, ranger MGB Auspice, bard epic and fierce eye, et cetera, to reach 100% crit rate. Group Black Wolf's mana preservation doesn't function for them while using Prolonged Destruction, so they really don't care about that portion. The critical nuke damage mod only came about in the December patch of additional AA content in VoA, and is still lower than second spire of arcanum. The crit chance is minimal (which is the same problem with enchanter third spire, although black wolf is a whopping 2% higher crit chance), so not really needed to hit 100% crit rate with their main burn in the current game- in SoD when spires came out, the innate crit AAs were lower caps for all casting classes, and abilities like Auspice of the Hunter had a lower crit boost, so when Group Spirit of the Black Wolf came out in Underfoot, it was more significant to hit everything right at the same time to reach 100% crit rate while heavily modded, as it was harder to reach. Once the crit damage mod was added, it was something that wizards definitely did NOT want with their burn, because using it after second spire is over means that their DPS stays higher for longer. The problem with that is, mages and wizards are frequently grouped together on raids, and mages DO want it with their burn- mage burn is Fire Core, which is a spell focus ability (like bard Aria, and consequently the spell focus effect takes precedence over, and does not stack with, aria, though they do not overwrite each other), so it works with it, and their spire is a crit chance mod (their other spires are a group DS proc and a proc for their pet, but when you're comparing to something like Talon, no contest). Now with the Shadow of Fear add-on, enchanters have an AA called Illusions of Grandeur. The crit damage mod on it is equal to wizard second spire, so you don't want to use black wolf at the same time, or it will be superseded. What that does, though some wizards have mentioned using their own spire first when burning in raid groups, is if the enchanter leads off, there's better synchronizing between the caster classes- the mage and the wizard will both get the benefit from Illusions of Grandeur when they're activating all their other burn stuff, and necromancers benefit from Illusions also, as it affects damage over time spells as well. Most caster classes burn a lot of mana when doing their burn- stopping to harvest drops their damage, abilities like Calculated Insanity and Prolonged Destruction have a mana penalty that negates the benefit of things like a glyph of lost secrets and black wolf's mana preservation, but when that is over, anything that helps them continue to cast (cheaper, and with mana regen, like, oh, say, black wolf) and still carrying a damage mod, is very useful. What it does mean is co-ordinating, with your enchanters, rangers, and silk DPS, when people want which, but don't worry about the bard. Nothing they do is going to make problems with Group Black Wolf (Complaining about having Black Wolf at the same time as just Fierce Eye is silly- the crit chance stacks, and Black Wolf's damage mod is WAY higher).
