More wizard nerfs? Really?

Don't play the victim. You've been provoking and attacking people since the moment you started posting in this thread. Also you keep saying that you are not in favor of nerfs to wizards and yet the general mage consensus seems to be "I'm glad you guys are now nerfed so that you can walk a mile in our shoes, and "wizards have been totally OP for the last few years."

That's complete garbage. During TDS good necros were outparsing wizards for anything above 4m and for a while a mage managed to beat my best parse by parsing 175k over 4m. The rain nerf and the twincast gobbling up 2x counters nerf are recent developments.

Mages are not wrong in stating that the rain nerf affected them more than us. However, that is not the only nerf wizards were subjected to and furthermore most casting classes have experienced nerfs not just mages. To pretend that somehow wizards have been ignoring mage woes when we were nerfed at essentially the same time is ridiculous.

The only time I can remember being for a mage nerf was during the beaming craze that was breaking the in game economy and the leveling system. If any nerf was ever deserved it was that one.

You might want to re-read this thread. Or shall I forward you a PM with all quotes from magicians speaking out against the wizard nerf? But as far as as the walking-a-mile-in-our-shoes goes, I do have to admit that I would consider it a healthy experience. Nontheless, magicians are not keen and hellbent on other classes getting nerfed at all. But as you so stated so observantly, I do tend to answer people in kind. Difference being is that I do not have any problems deconstructing their flawed logic and do have to resort to try to injure their reputation in order to try to belittle their arguments, but I rather do it out of annoyance AFTER I dismantled their arguments with reason.

I'd be interested in that acclaimed magician four minute 175K DPS parse, including spell list, as well as support. Oh, let me guess, you can't tell me due to ... reasons. Also, you are obviously upset, that THE sustained damage class outperforms THE damage burst class outside their burn? I fail to see you mentioning anything before TDS or any melees, though ...

I'd love to but I don't save the parses of other people from over half a year ago. As for my best parse during tds and the necro that beat it during what I can only assume was an average night you can find them both in this thread.

https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/wizard-vs-magician.224334/page-3

My Post

I've seen a mage do 170k dps over 4m. When you have that kind of dps capability and the ability to use pets I wouldn't say that there is much of a difference there.

My personal best dps:

4m:
/GU Praetor Vitio in 252s, 49560k @196666sdps --- Manaelil 49560k@196666sdps (196666dps in 252s)

20m:
/GU Combined: An indagator in 1230s, 128288k @104299sdps --- Manaelil 128288k@104299sdps (104299dps in 1230s)

Both of these parses use every scrap of available adps.I've seen a mage do 170k dps over 4m. When you have that kind of dps capability and the ability to use pets I wouldn't say that there is much of a difference there.

My personal best dps:

4m:
/GU Praetor Vitio in 252s, 49560k @196666sdps --- Manaelil 49560k@196666sdps (196666dps in 252s)

20m:
/GU Combined: An indagator in 1230s, 128288k @104299sdps --- Manaelil 128288k@104299sdps (104299dps in 1230s)

Both of these parses use every scrap of available adps.

The necro that beat it
Post by Brogett
I've never seen a mage hit 197k like Manaelil's parse above (grats btw!). Our last Vitali kill was very similar duration though. 3 nec, 2 mag, ZERO wiz, 2 mnk, 1 ber, 4 rog, 2 rng, 2 bst; oh and I guess for completeness on "dps" 4 enc

/GU Praetor Vitio in 276s, 443567k @1607125sdps --- Necromancer + pets 52254k@189327sdps (200978dps in 260s) [11.78%] --- Necromancer 44979k@162966sdps (171021dps in 263s) [10.14%] --- Rogue + pets 30339k@109923sdps (114486dps in 265s) [6.84%] --- Magician + pets 26890k@97426sdps (102632dps in 262s) [6.06%] --- Ranger 26389k@95612sdps (99581dps in 265s) [5.95%] --- Berserker 24979k@90502sdps (93904dps in 266s) [5.63%] --- Rogue + pets 24642k@89281sdps (91604dps in 269s) [5.56%] --- Magician + pets 230 ...

I can't vouch for who had what in group, but I know I had perfect support (I'm the 1st rog in there, ber was in same grp).

Yes you can see all sorts of slack ;-) Like I say I'm impressed with Manaelil's parse which would have been equiv to the top necro we had that night and 2nd overall. I've no idea how it pans out post nerf. (This was PRENERF.)

As far as the mage who beat me his name was Bonaiel and the support we had was either 1 or 2 chanters when chromatic haze was all the rage. My best previous to the 196k dps parse was 169k over 4m. Bonaiel beat it handily.

So ... a magician succeeded in barely beating you on one parse and you comfortably pulled ahead again some time later? Some vague mentions about chromatic haze being the culprit ... You mention that these numbers are from different events fights, possibly even different events with a roughly same duration and no context is given (like overall DPS level of the raid, aka more players being a little slack, or less players working harder, which would have resulted in approximately the same fight duration also, but with vastly different DPS figures).
EDIT: BTW, that mage parse, was that possibly before End of July 2015? That means: Before rain spells were nerfed (+ re-structuring of critical spell yadda yadda you all know the list), which resulted in mage DPS going down and wizard DPS going up? *looks at Manaelil's post in other thread* Oh yeah, it was! Both your magician beating your old record AND your new record btw! SURPRISE!!!

As you are constantly delivering half-truths, exaggerations or downplays, dependant on the "fact" you want to highlight, and even contradicting yourself, you will understand that it is quite hard to take anything you say at face value.

BTW, that parse from Brogett you are pulling, you DID notice he mentioned there was NO wizard aboard and that in their raid, no magician even achieved 100K DPS on a roughly similar duration (four and a half minute)? And that the necro's DPS was before the unneccessary nerfs to necros earlier this year? Edit: Brogett's parse is also the first day after the rain nerf 22nd of July 2015 ...


None of this, though, has anything to do with wizard AA nukes now costing mana, which, as stated NUMEROUS times, although you downplay or ignore that as well, is 1) uncalled for 2) over the top and hopefully to be tuned downward 3) glad if was remedied so AA nukes no longer eat charges of ITC and FD (I should really copy those three points to a textfile, if's getting tedious having to remind wizards every couple posts).

As to the nerf about twincasted spells eating multiple counters - Although it definitely was reducing wizards power considerably, you will agree that it was more of a bugfix than a nerf, you know, with two spells casted simultaneously, it makes sense that two charges are deducted, right? I do agree that this nerf, as well as your claw-nerf, arcane fusion, pyromancy and whatnot else were all probably not neccessary to be done, but pls stop acting as if it was only wizards who got shafted during the last two years ... or even wizards getting the biggest shaft in EQ's history.

Multiple edits: Smoothed out some grammar/spelling mistakes and added some small passages for clarification purposes.

You can give all the excuses you want but the fact of the matter is it happened. A mage beat a wizard and that unravels all the and bellyaching that you've been spouting all over the forums. Wizards have been OP for years. Mages are seen as second class dps citizen's. Blah Blah Blah not during tds they weren't. The difference between Bonaiel and other mages is that he actually researched his abilities and knew his class inside and out. He managed that parse in Freelance which is an open raiding force where trying to coordinate adps is like trying to herd cats. He also did it when he wasn't fully raid geared.

As for my later parse I came ahead because I figured out the importance of elemental arrow and convinced our rangers to use it during viteo. Elemental arrow works just as well for mages as it does for wizards. That generally happens. People improve over time. The only reason we didn't see a repeat performance from Bonaiel (who used to kick my all over ROF) is because he rarely raids. When he accomplished his parse his gear was far worse than mine. And by the way I was there when he made that parse. I came in second and I remember it because it blew away my best parse.

Oh really? You don't say. OF COURSE I KNOW. Again we were nerfed at roughly the same time. For wizards it was FD mana cost and twincast consuming 2 counters. For mages it was rain nerfs. Stop pretending that mages are special snowflakes that are somehow suffering alone. Every single caster class has been nerfed.

you ever parsed a mage with no adps?
EDIT: I also beat some wiz on the reg but trust me it has nothing to do with what wiz can and cannot do with or without adps

Just to briefly address a few things here:

I don't even know how to respond to this. This statement is just spinning an argument from nothing. Yes, Mages are a second-tier DPS class, albeit a good one. If you want the Mage class to be primary DPS, you can drop your pet. But then you'd be a Wizard.

Berzerkers, Wizards, and Mages are not tanks. "But they can sometimes do it in raid gear against a single target!" doesn't make them a tank class. Mage pets are in group content, however. And lol at Wizard utility, which I'll address below. Lastly, Wizard nukes get resisted on non-debuffed current content mobs all the time. It's why they scream for Tash and Malo while spamming Lower Element on everything. BTW, you are one of only two classes to receive one of the best single target debuff spells in the game - Malo.

Root and stun spells don't give Wizards "utility". Almost every class in the game, aside from Mages, have some form of root. The same goes for snare. There are also a host of clicky items that can do the same. Single target stuns are again available to a large number of classes, and aside from Paladins, I don't know anyone who actually uses them. You're once again spinning arguments out of nothing. I guess an argument could be made for Teleport to Bind, port, and Evac being "utility", but in this wonderful age we live in it takes 5 minutes or less to get anywhere in the game. And if you want to argue about <teleport whatever> being some amazing utility thing, well, CotH is better in almost every content-related situation and given exclusively to the Mage class.

I'm really not even sure what your argument is at this point. Mages need a DPS buff? Maybe. But it seems to me like the four primary DPS classes need some tweaking as well. Mages *should* be consistently parsing lower than Wizards. They were created to fill different but similar roles and excel at different things. This is part of what makes EQ a fun and diverse game. If you want to parse higher, roll a pure DPS class.

Just out of curiosity? What, according to your opinion, are the "four pure DPS classes"? According to your answer, I could make a fortune selling pitchforks and torches.

The queue forms the the right, ladies and gentlemen!

You ARE aware it wasn't me who started bringing up "utility" as an argument, that honour belongs to some wizard or another? And also, because a certain ability is wide spread amongst classes, it doesn't count towards some kind of mythical ability limit? Well, then - EVERY SINGLE CLASS in the entire game has access to tank mercenaries which tank just as good as magician pets. Oh let me guess: this argument is invalid due to ... reasons ...

All joking aside, it is hilarious how wizards and warriors always ty to convince people that magicians are actually a hybrid between wizards and warriors - only that warriors state mage pet tanking needs to be nerfed even more because they have nukes, while wizards state magician DPS needs to be nerfed because they have a pet. If even these two classes, who obviously have intimate knowledge about the ultimate balance, as shows their benevolent sight on class balance within their respective archetypes ("Wizards should outperform class X every time" - "Knights mustn't be able to tank in raids"), can't decide what mages actually are - why don't we leave the decision to be made between those two groups which are actually involved: The magicians and the developers? Until I read a dev state otherwise, I will consider mages a true DPS class. As it was considered for a decade.

Wizards complain that teleportation spells were rendered neigh useless by guild banner and fellowship fire. You can use the exact same things to argue that CotH is basically meaningless in this day and age.

So me showing you how absolutely and blatantly absurd your own definitions are by providing context is "spinning an argument from nothing"? Congratulations, you just ended all need for discussion. I mean, honestly - if having one of if not the most powerful aDPS tool at their disposal is not considered "utility" - what in the name of Veeshan is?

Sorta off topic, but I really wouldn't consider monks in this "pure class" boat, at least traditionally. Maybe that's changed now via content, but they (used to) have a role as puller, and still retain a bunch self only type of utility that's still quite good at the group level (not to mention the survival stuff isn't awful on raids).

I actually think monks are to rogues as mages are to wizards, for the most part, in that they should usually do a little worse overall dps in most (but not all) cases compared to their neighbor that has less "utility" and group game power.

That whole idiocy was proof that the "don't Nerf me, boost others" logic is going to result in the same crying Jordan stupidity that the nerfing is. Never going to make the toddlers with (or without) their lollipops happy, so it really shouldn't be that hard to fathom why any of the devs aren't rushing to start town hall discussion with players about why they make game changes. People flip out regardless rabble rabble rabble.

The pulling role is so out of date. Even group geared tanks can facetank the average cluster of mobs you would have traditionally have used a puller to split.

They do that only so that enchanters have something to do in group game XD

Now I'm curious. How would you balance these classes? Let's say on a scale of 1 to 10 for both tanking ability and a scale of 1 to 10 for dps. How would you score things? What should they be?

You've have some good points but this one is a bit of a stretch. I personally never knew any wizards that fit into this category. I can't imagine why anyone would miss having to zone back and forth porting people all the time. To be generous the only thing I do consider a nerf is the addition of pok books. It's no longer fun to port annoying people to tox if they can get back so easily.

Yeah, hence "used to" and "at least traditionally". But their survivability via 30smend, impen, fd/id, purify, etc translates ok to the raid game - staying alive in oh crap scenarios longer than others is a good thing, whereas a Mage's semblance of group level "utility" (pets, coth, rods?) is quite awful at raids.

You were not even remotely correct. Every critical damage and critical chance ability in the game affects forces except for counter based ones. This was true for months prior to this change, and it's only untrue now because forces are actually eating the counters.

So yes, if you only use FD, forces are stuck at their base crit chance and crit damage. But ignoring nearly every other crit chance/damage ability in the game seems a bit more than a minor detail.

I find your selection of the 4 "pure"/"primary" DPS classes (Zerker, Rogue, Monk, Wizard) interesting given your argument about utility. You dismiss Wizard utility as it being minor things, replaceable by clickies or abilities shared by other classes and I would assume you believe the same for the other 3. However, this same argument can be made for the utility of every other class you deem secondary as nearly every class has some form/clickie/pot/etc of every utility. Even within the 4 classes you deem "pure" every single thing you deem as "utility" ability can be found in one form or another (class abilityclickie/pot/etc) in nearly all of those classes making them not so pure. Roots, snares, fades, mezes, ports, debuffs, buffs, ADPS, increased survivability, pulling, tanking, etc. etc. etc. Some do it better than others, but that is true with all classes.

Also in your things to be considered in regards to balance you left out things like class mechanics/game play and the ability to stack x amount of a class. While you might be able to stack 24 of x DPS class the mechanics/game play of y DPS class might limit their total to 3 or 4.

Side Note:
Give Monks some love. HoT was a long time ago and they have suffered for being OP during that time for long enough.

Where is my Manaburn clicky

what? CC is as outdated as pulling in the group game. Don't get me wrong I love enchanters but I don't bring them along for mez/stun/root.

I think the truth is empirically discovered. It doesn't take pronouncements from anyone.

Magicians, Druids, and Enchanters each have non-robust suites of bomb nukes for pure dps: Spear, Roar, Mindbombs respectively, which have to be vertically combined in their own line from past expansions to chain cast. There are other things going on to bulk out each class' burn idiom, but that line is a strong unifying parallel between them.

Each one has a strong secondary power center: Enchanters CC, Druids healing, Magicians tanking. The secondary power centers have more or less limited application on raids depending on the strats a raid force employs, but are so robust outside raids as to obviate the need for additional role filling in groups.

Pickup trucks; minivans; electric sedans.

Racecar:
Wizards are very clearly not in that same race. Wizard bomb nukes are in several lines, with shorter cooldowns so only the highest level ones are used. There is no secondary power center; Wizards skip right to just-above-incapable on anything they can do besides nuke. Like, Cleric level CC or Rogue tanking or Bst player-healing.