Mage or Wizard on Phinny?

Druid and shaman are also excellent soloers, honestly you shouldn't try to solo really, but if you want to while you wait any of the priest classes (even cleric) are probably better than wizard/mage (other than quad kiting, and even then)

lol wycca... you sometimes do come off that way, but those that know you, know you're usually not trying to be one. even at the height of the issues with TL, your posts were almost(everyone has their moments where the gloves come off) always respectful.

wizzies are fun and a rather specialized class that aren't for everyone, especially for soloing. if you're looking to solo you are better off with a mage or shaman/druid.

Rains on mobs with MOTM is a waste of a keystroke in my opinion.

For the record I started with MAG/WIZ and only switched away from MAG with the upcoming and now stupid pet changes. I fully plan to level my MAG from 50 to 60 as well as a NEC 1-60 now that I'm pretty much done with Kunark stuff and have to wait until May for Velious.

Gives me options to switch out Wiz for Pets depending on what I need at the time.

You decision here really comes down to raiding. Wizards are specialists like warriors, that get a good advantage in a narrow area handy primarily for raids, in return for big shortcomings everywhere else versus other classes. If raiding is a big priority or especially a top priority, a wizard is a good choice. If you aren't big into raiding, heck no.

As soloers, they are certainly solid in the few spots they are allowed to do that. In olden times soloing was a lot more common, but now groups have a double (?) xp bonus, plus just plain kill stuff much faster than before, due to all the spell improvements and out-of-era gear in the game. Now soloing is largely about farming I'd say, and wizards are near the bottom at that activity.

As for AA grinds, I concur that constant pulling will pay off in the long run - something Wizards are not particularly strong at keeping up with without gear / planning / group setups.

Fortunately, with the launch of Luclin (around a year away on Lockjaw I think?), Wizards should be able to obtain a reasonable amount of FT:
+3 Boots of Flowing Slime
+3 Shawl 8
+1 PotC Earring
+3 Mental Clarity AA
Effectively giving you FT10 on top of eventually snagging a KEI that you don't even need to bring a chanter to group for a few hours of grinding. If you raid, there are plenty of additional FT options. If I recall correctly Tunare has a ridiculous Velious in-era drop with FT5 on it for example.

Toss in Fluffy's extra +4 / tick and 10% savings from SCM3 AA and you've really only had to grind the first two dozen AA at a limp. After that, and with solid groups and some specific gear choices, wizards aren't exactly a liability in grind sessions.

But, lets be honest for a moment. If you're gonna AA grind you should be using chanter pets. Everyone else just becomes "also DPS'd" in grinds at that point.

Let's phrase this question a different way: What sounds more op, a group with a cleric, tank, chanter and 3 mages or a group with a tank, cleric, chanter and 3 wizards?

I know which group most people would want to be in.

So far from the truth! Rains are your top dps/best efficiency options for raid mobs theyll land on, just like group content. You usually run a rotation based on agro gen and fight length. Ie, in classic, on Nag/Vox for example, your top dps rotation is something like Rain 2x nuke Rain 2x nuke etc. If it's a bit longer fight (ie low #'s or low dps classes), you'll want to reduce the # of nukes, it lowers your dps, but stretches your mana further and raises your overall dmg done with your mana pool.

In classic, if you want to hit the 10k dmg club on dragons (which is somewhat fight length dependent), the only way you'll do it is by using rains.

In Kunark - Trak for example, is generally considered a sk/mnk dominant parse, but if you know what you're doing, wiz can still top parses. I've got a bag full of wiz-topping parses (cept VS, Xygoz, and PD - which wiz are limited to middling) for every kunark mob, and it's instantly obvious who is using rains and who isn't. The dmg totals are sometimes 50% higher.

The order is - Wiz Mnk SK Wiz Mnk Wiz SK Wiz Mnk Wiz

Want to argue a shorter fight where more time is spent under melee disc & 1k more raid dps? Sure -

Mnk SK Wiz Mnk SK Wiz Wiz Mag Wiz SK?

We're using rains on those, the wiz who aren't, well, they're the ones with massive disparity near the bottom under all the melee.

Agree somewhat - every class gets the FT boosts, so it's not exactly going to boost wiz in particular over another casting class. Minor correction though, the +3 shawl isn't available until PoP. You're stuck with the FT1 shawl.

It's a fun nostalgia topic anyway. Don't forget the staff of temperate flux too. Prior to velious the hottest quadding spot used to be raptors in oot I believe. And I actually saw someone who appeared to be quadding seafuries recently (this may be the only time I've ever seen doing a quad in the last decade). Not sure how well it works with the classic spells but you are definitely good to go in kunark.

Also in kunark out zones you can quad anything social (so they dont run off at low health and scatter). I used to quad drolvargs in DL back when. Nearing 60 in the past, about the only option was skyfire, but BW would probably be preferred now.

In velious I also used to quad the wandering giants in iceclad at low levels. CS is of course vastly better. You can get the gems for armor I think, so finally a real use for doing it.

In luclin you can quad those little groups of shadel bandits in fungus grove. I hooked many guildies up with rings back then. Another use that may make it worthwhile for farming with in the present.

And of course tables in Plane of Fire in PoP is the pinnacle of quad-dom, where you can also get much-needed parchments.

Ah the memories. But yeah I don't even go out of my way to buy AE spells on my wizard now. Though after all the reminiscing I kinda want to go out and do it some...

Just came back from a long hiatus. Are AE groups viable in Kunark?

I always remember wizard fitting in good with that kind of group. If so what is the ideal group make up?

Also how are you landing rains on dragons without killing yourself? Do you land the spell and then back out? Sorry for the newbish questions, but I never played a wizard seriously.

Definitely viable. Group makeup varies depending on skill and knowledge of the zone. If the wizards can pull without dying you can have 3 wiz, 2 chanter, cleric. If that is too dangerous, 2 wiz, 2 chanter, 1 cleric, and a puller. I did AoE groups on RF as both a chanter and a wizard with mostly setup #2, mainly for ease and safety. A bit more downtime but not really a huge factor and when you're pulling 40+ mobs. Need the Jyll's line to make it efficient, so 53 is the ideal starting point.

Actually, with the raid mobs, if you move out of range, the rain ticks will not hit. You have to maintain LoS at all times for the rain ticks to hit (ie its not just in-range).

Rains hit the center of the mob, and hit boxes on raid mobs (well cept VS and draco, but you dont rain them anyways) are large enough that if you stand just inside of melee range, the rain won't hit you. It takes practice, but if you've done it as often as we did on RF, it's 2nd nature to find that tiny spot to stand.

Of course, rains hit feared players, so you have to time it based on the fears.

Mages and Wizards are basically interchangeable for AE groups tbh... If 1 of each were LFG at the same time I would take the wiz, but most AE groups will take either.

Thank you guys for the responses, I appreciate it.

I'm actually curious, is anyone actually doing AE groups on LJ? I've yet to see anyone looking to replace someone - even late night when it's less disruptive to run these types of groups.

Second, what's your preferred puller?

Parse inflation if timed right?

In all honesty, I've only bothered with minis that have motm. My experience on legitimate raids (hi hi who needs my crew - see above for list!). Rains never landed worth a lick but I don't have access to Malo/Mala to drop fire or cold resists so maybe that's part of the problem.

Much of my gear I listed is from farming for Krono and helping out the bigger box crews with menial farming in exchange for things I cannot do on my own.

wycca :Let's look at your argument though. What matters isn't how much damage it can do, or how efficient it is, what matters is your sustained dps. Great, so Samdeathwalker the wizard can do 2700 dps! What can he do over 1hr? How does that compare to say, melee classes, or classes with pets (hint, it's not favorable for a wizard to make that comparison). Therein lies the problem. It's the sustained dps in steady pull environments.

The other problem, is that improved damage doesn't work on rains. Plus, every other class gets those modifiers, so the net efficiency improvements (espec the lack of ID working on it) actually set wizards back in spell casting in comparison to other classes when using these. Ie, since they're not using rains, the non-wiz will gain efficiency ground due to ID working on their nukes.

Wiz mana regen is 25/tick sitting at 60. Let's assume you have c2 and it's +11/tick. Sure, you can use potions too, most people won't pay for the distillate given it's rare component, but the +2/tick shaman one is np. Besides, you often won't have an enc or brd in group, so you'd be stuck with +0 from that type of regen, or maybe you have a marketplace potion (which is like 7 or 8 at that level). That's a total of maybe 38/tick mana regen maybe. If you're not casting and can actually sit down mid-fight. I'm going to use 38/tick because it seems like a reasonable compromise in what is likely to be used by most wiz in an exp group.

Now, what other classes can do better than 20-30dps sustained? Well let's see, that would be - Nec (pet only probably does at least this), Mag (pet only does more), Enc (charm pet does alot more), Rog, Mnk, Rng, War, and Brd (dont forget dps songs) most likely. That leaves...Shm, Dru, Clr, SK, Pal. Except I actually think SK and Pal melee may be around this in Kunark, so tough call. Druids get some good nuke and dot lines, so they're theoretically around this (and they have 2 neat druid-only mana regen spell lines they can use). Shm can probably match this (spamming JBB = like 25dps!!). Ok, so maybe a clr can't match this. So yea....are wiz really even a group dps class with these numbers?

So in conclusion, most classes do more sustained dps, and they do it trivially easier than Wiz. For most it's just auto attack or /pet attack. The other classes, offer substantial utility or roles in a group that Wiz can't fill. Don't get me wrong, things like snare, evac, and ports have uses, but the primary thing a wiz is bringing to an exp group is dps. They do this worse than just about everyone else in a sustained setting. Burst - great, but I don't know many exp groups that purposefully exist to not 1) keep mobs in camp, 2) who count on having to evac reguarlly, or 3) who like to have large med breaks at very regular intervals (ie every 10 mobs or so).

One thing I'm not sure you're aware of, I have a wizard on Ragefire. I played one in Classic and Kunark, I might still be the best geared one on Ragefire (I checked, looks like someone finally passed me in magelo - 2 months after I stopped playing on Ragefire). I've played wizards on raids and in groups in all that time, solo, farming, quadding, and ae'ing. I regularly topped parses, including on mobs people assume are mnk/sk dominant mobs. Done it all at 50 and 60. The class is a great raid class. Tons of fun. It has a pretty big critical flaw in that it is the absolute weakest group class in the game. Hopefully this fuller explanation explains why I posted what I did. Although if you're enjoying playing a wizard - great - good for you, don't let me rain on your parade. Nevertheless, the facts get in the way of any number-based analysis that they're a kick-*** group dps class. They're not. They're incredibly weak in groups.

My response: This looks kinda like the math i did when i got my first job when i was 16 working on sonic and was going to buy a corvette in 3 years by spending absolutely nothing no anything that wasn't absolutely necesarry haha. btw sorry about bein a jerk. was in a bad mood the other day i guess comp just crashed on me (just got it back) and had been arguiing with my brother about the very same topic haha.

You're assuming that you are in an absolutely perfect group I think that will NEVER have to have a med break, melee's will ALWAYS have auto attack on, there will ALWAYS actually be mobs to pull constantly (i've yet to see this except in oot), you will NEVER have to evac, etc etc. This isn't true with 90% of pick up groups, most of them have med breaks anyway, waiting on puller, outta mobs and so on.maybe you are lucky and have wanna those static clicky guild groups of all the officers must be nice!

Obviouly any time a melee doesn't have auto attack on they are losing dps, i know that's impossible to calculate but it makes a bigger difference than i'm assuming you think. Wizards on the other hand have the least amount of variance in that situation see'ing that it's purely mana to dmg and also healer's aren't spending more of their mana on healing melee's and having to take med breaks anyway.

I wasn't trying to argue they were the best sustained dps class that's certainly not true mages beat em hands down. I think necro's are constantly losing efficieny do to mobs dying so fast. ench definately a win over all those 3 yes rogue and monks in kunark. I was just saying they aren't as trashy as you have said putting wiz less than bard? c'mon man!

You mentioned basically how every other class gets those foci's i mentioned so that makes it a wash, but wizzies do benefit more from these see'ing that they are most efficient at converting mana to dmg.

Without covering every point you've listed I think it makes more sense to look at it from a % of dmg per mob aspect instead of, Who can turn on auto attack on for an hour against a dummy and come out on top. With this comparison i've never been in any group awesome or terible where i havn't been able to pull 30 to 40 % of the mob's health per mob, But i use all of the above foci's and potions and look for every opportunity to use rains. I think probably not the best but respectable for any dps slot.

Thanks for the reply aside from my I enjoy a solid convo on the topic.
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