So I was reading some of the threads for wizards here in the class forums and comparing it to my own thoughts and experiences and personal expectations for the class. My wizard is an alt and I by no means claim to be an expert. But I do believe good ideas can come from a variety of sources and often from people least invested in the outcome. Some of my inspiration comes from https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/wizards-help-a-returning-player-out.259620/ With the comparison to the shadow knight harm touch. I have always envisioned wizards as being glass cannons with supreme single target and AE spell damage with the ability to eat up chunks of mob hitpoints for big mana costs. The introduction of the original mana burn fell nicely in my notions for the class though it obviously had balance issues and then serious stagnation before the current model evolved. With the development of the game I see most classes having burns and sustained and a complicated hierarchy that is always in flux. I currently believe that wizards are not where they really should be in burst, and I feel the current implementation of mana burn to be awkward and not ideal and making adjustments to it could be a great place to address some issues for wizards. I propose something akin to the following: 1. Big upfront damage. We are nukers, I want to see the boss hitpoints move. I think harm touch is a great reference point as to where this should land in the initial damage compartment. So, I want more upfront damage than the current version offers. 2. Remove the 500 counter debuff from the mob and replace it with the following: a) a dot lasting up to 30 seconds, b) a 10 charge personal buff that adds fixed damage to the next 10 nukes (can eat extra mana here like the ranger Scarlet Cheetah AA), and c) a group recourse with 5 to 10 charges that adds damage for the group on detrimental spells and procs or a beneficial heal amount for heals for in group healers. Explanation to why I want the change: 1. Mana Burn should be a powerful ability for the wizard to want to use nearly on cool down or on named bosses or whenever it strategically makes sense. Currently it doesn't do enough damage in a group setting for the mana cost for me. It really doesn't feel like a burn ability at all. It feels like a really expensive debuff that is easily wasted especially in a group environment. 2. The current version isn't friendly for having multiple wizards. Again, it makes it not feel like a burn ability and suddenly becomes a chore to use. 3. I get that huge instant damage from nukes can be seriously over powered in much of the game, raids included. That is why I like that harm touch has extra damage it deals as a dot. A short dot still makes it a good burn ability, without making it a 1 shot situation. A short dot also allow it to stack across multiple casters so several wizards can burn at once. Which again makes it more friendly for use. 4. A personal dps recourse, makes the ability useful as a burn that can be used on multiple targets, makes the ability more flexible and generally useful. It requires additional effort from the caster to utilize, and continues to add to the burn. I am okay with these recourse procs costing additional mana like Scarlet Cheetah, or we can click it off if needed. Again this about doing a lot of damage quickly (but at a reasonable cost). 5. I did not love that the revised mana burn had the proc debuff damage before. Seems very not wizardly to me. But I accept that adps is a thing most classes do now, and benefiting the group still makes sense, but I think it should be a group oriented AA. If a caster group wants to coordinate to maximize these procs they can to increased benefit. But it won't require coordination with outside groups. Maybe they can make so the greater (self) and lesser (group) versions can coexist, that way 2 wizards get extra benefit, even if it over writes on the rest of the group. I'm not sure how Scarlet Fang works in that regard. I wanted to make it have a potential beneficial option for healers etc in the group, but that isn't a key idea here other than the "fixed damaged" nature of the ability and it's being wasted by someone not doing damage. My goal is to increase wizard dps especially on burns within the confines of their class role, keep many of the elements the existing versions used but make it more burn and user friendly and make it more useful in groups.
Well since no one has answered you in a day and I like to see wizards posting about wizard stuff, here's what I got on the subject. Most of us I think just accept what it is today and move on. You linked a thread that talks about mana burn a little. There were a few from a year or so ago that also discussed mana burn. First, the ratios did improve … we got 700k for 10k mana, which is a better rate than 400k per 10k mana on the last rank. The recourse also had a 25 percent increase. So … such a jump tells me they know MB is underpowered (I believe there was even a comment in a Beta thread to that effect from a dev...but of course they kill Beta forums so fast I cannot confirm). The huge damage thought (devs being scared of a single huge nuke) is a red herring. Shadowknights can hit 12M (plus the dot) in a caster dps group with harm touch. Druids are closing in on 10M (plus the dot) with everything lining up for NBW. Mages are hitting for 6M with SoM. I've seen 6M or so for the top wizard bang so far with ToV stuff. Even see a 6M thing from a necro. All of this stuff is well under 70k (or the new 80k) cost for 2.8/3.5M, and far more repeatable than once every 36 minutes. The recourse is nice for a raid … 25k x 500 = 12.5M potential at the highest level now. Total damage output is still less than HT, and I bet possibly under a full NBW. The real problems with the recourse are: -requires a buff slot on the mob -is invisible to anyone parsing -benefits the wizard the least in general (we're generally casting longer spells so the .5 sec hybrid and other casters casts eat 90 percent of the counters) I think the reasons you outlined above mirror my own dissatisfaction with the recourse - basically, it's not very EQ wizardy. We're a very selfish class. MB should not be the one place where we help others. In the group game, I use it on named mobs only. My self group is a heavy caster group so there are a lot of nukes and it does help, but in the modern game watching 25+ percent of your mana bar go away for far less than that on a mob's health seems anti-climatic. My improved mana burn would be: -1.5M per 10k mana cost (so now would be 12M for 80k mana) -Self recourse with 100 counters, 5 minute limit that adds 3k damage per 10k mana spent (so now would be 24k damage add) -Self recourse would work with forces -No restrictions for multiple mana burns on mob So overall, the mana burn does less total damage but ALL damage is now gained by the wizard who expends such an effort. Multiple wizards are not penalized in a raid setting. Groupers get a buff that helps past a single mob. -or- Remove the mana cost completely for the current version as is. Still worse than HT. If you can get a dev to talk to you why there seems to be such a restriction for the single most costly ability in the game, bar none … I'd love to see the answer.
I agree with both of you. Given the limitations to mana burn (no twincast, can’t be focused, etc.), it is not a really great improvement over a normal nuke. In a typical raid with ENC/DRU/BRD support, the DD component of Mana Burn is near equivalent to a twincast Ethereal. If another Wizard drops their mana burn at the same time (common when everyone needs to burn at once), then the counters are lost. It really should scale up to the levels of Harm Touch.
They did at least address the overwriting issue pretty well. If mana burn is still on the mob you get this message and it won't let you use the AA: [Sun Jan 12 20:26:40 2020] Your target does not meet the spell requirements. This spell will not take hold until the effects of the previous Mana Burn have expired.
Agree on the be as good as HT. But I actually like the fact that MB does not get all the possible modifiers we can have … it's a straight number. Which means it can be used at any point during a fight, and you aren't short changed if every adps doesn't line up … particularly at the start of a burn fight (as in the wizard who would lead with it could start their burns after MB cast to squeeze a tad more out rather than have to start self adps first...or wait for the other classes to fire their adps). I do agree that it would be more fun if it did though. But overall, I think I like the fixed number better (and I'd like it even more if it was much higher for the modern game). BTW, counters are never lost anymore. MB counter buff from another wizard (assume rank of MB the same) will cause your MB not to fire, getting the message that Kizant shows above. The overwriting issue is mostly better. Works fine in the raid game cause the 500 counter buff is gone fast and thus pretty much all wizards in a raid can use MB on a mob if they want. In a group setting with two or more wizards, it can be much harder to get those 500 counters off and usually have to wait the full two minutes for another.
Cragzop - Sorry, I didn’t articulate myself well. I wasn’t advocating that MB should be focusable. I was just saying that the opportunity cost of another nuke seriously decreases the value of Manaburn once you take into consideration that normal nukes can reach 3M damage themselves. Personally I don’t think MB should be focusable, it should just do substantially more damage as part of the base nuke. I’d love to see 10M + another 10M from activating the counters.
Sorry my bad. Others have advocated for adps affecting MB over the years and I thought that was where you were going. Completely agree that the big boom of MB isn’t anything to get excited about. But for some reason the developers are so scared of the mere thought of a giant wizard nuke ... and that’s the attitude we have to change.
Strange. I think it worked last night. I remember clicking it a few times wondering why it wasn't casting and saw the message. But I didn't look if it really worked.
Did both have full MB ranks? Some weird stuff can happen when out of sync ranks try to hit the same mob. For what it is worth, I just trying with 2 of my test wizard crew (22/24 ranks) and buff on from one was clearly blocking the casting of the other until the buff wore off without using up MB.
