The stigma Wizards have

wiz is usually top dps on any raid mob that doesnt have high resists until pop then its downhill. After Pop gameplay gets boring casting one spell for a long time with rains becoming underwhelming (5% increase in dmg from lvl 65 to 70) gets more interesting in like TSS. Aggro is also an issue where you do half the damage of monks and get summoned.

I don't think I will be playing a caster on tlps again, immunities/high resists on raid mobs and aggro balance for damage spells are so frustrating (love having lure spells resisted in kunark) and there isn't enough melee hate in the game to balance their existence. I wonder what the designer of plane of sky was thinking when they typed those resists into every mob.

There are ways to get a rain spell to hit a single target, even if other mobs are nearby. Instead of targeting the mob itself, target a PC or corpse off to the side that is just inside the AE radius of the target but outside the AE radius of the other mobs. Experienced wizards will know how to judge the distance of their rains correctly.

When this isn’t practical, good wizards downshift to a smaller, more efficient nuke. Rarely did I use my “big” nuke unless it had to die *right now*. Those nukes are horribly mana inefficient, but they can certainly bring the heat! As one person stated, the skill ceiling is deceptively high for wizards, and played right they are fun!

Wizards start off the weakest class and continually increase in power until you start getting to the later half of expansions. You'll have a very good run around the middle pack of expansions topping every burn parse, and near the top of all but the longest of others.

Once they start stacking all the +crit abilities, a wizards biggest group level utility is the ability to completely delete 3-4 mobs in 20 seconds. This is around the same time that chanter mez stops being useful.

I had no idea.

Even in classic Wizards are decent. Mage's are better in the group game, and wizards are better raiding. It's jut really lame raiding sky as a caster in general. In classic you can definitely top the parse on either dragon and stuff like phinney, and shouldn't top the parse but be ok in hate and fear.

They're also extremely important if you're playing in an open world racing guild.

From classic on they get better and better until Luclin. Luclin they dominate with rangers.

Indeed. That's even apparent at very low level. Cast "Shock of Lightning" for that impressive 74 dmg at lvl 10 for 50 mana or cast 2x the lower level Shock of Ice for 50 dmg at 23 mana per cast totaling in 100dmg for 46 mana. When stuff goes wrong the first is maybe the better choice to get rid of the mob fast with chain casts, but when all smooth the second is much more efficient. Difference between a good Wizard and a poor one.

Are there any good in depth wizard guides for Classic-Pop? I know the basics. I’m looking for sell breakdowns, clickies to look for, that kinda stuff

I like playing wizards... I never do...

Same reason I do not like playing rangers and rogues.

Its not fun being last pick for dps.

The flip side of this is that if you do level a wiz, rng, or rog... you get a little bit of props from many.

There was a REALLY good one.... damn I should have saved the link. Forget where he posted it.

The guy went into rotations to use for leveling.

Rotations to use to maximize raid dps.

Mob resists and all that good stuff.

It was pretty good info.

It was something like how to not suck at being a wizard on TLP.

This thread is a pretty good guide tbh

Regarding gear - a larger mana pool is obviously a benefit if you're doing it right. That said, the rains are so cheap & efficient you can med/nuke infinitely at lower levels. Regarding add aggro from rains - so long as you can tank 'em long enough to root 'em (and there's space to root park) it's all to the good to get them off the tank. Just don't expect a heal.

Bandages and Shieldskin* are your friend.

* don't cast in fights!

Not to necro an older thread, but saw this and remembered a link from playing a previous tlp.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1aUSP5kHAYcl11z86wAvp39mgbmaZzQL9nqn_Gfmp9ks/edit#gid=0

I understand I can change it. But FU if you ever make a spreadsheet using neon green.

Everything dies so easily in classic that having the optimum group doesn't matter. I invite people who are not afk and who can get to a camp in a reasonable amount of time. If people don't want to group with you because you're a wizzie then they're probably players that you don't want to actually be playing with. Heck often there's competition for spawns or someone tries to KS you and wizzies can help make those kills fast.

Getting groups is all about making friends. If you make friends and talk to them when you log in they will find you a space in their groups.

Was that wrong? Was I not supposed to do that? Because nobody told me.

"This mob has high resists, so we need a volunteer to eat the DT...."

/eyes the wizards int he raid

The mana cost of strike of solusek on that sheet is wrong it's 640 not 512. SoS is basically never cast, it's at best a minority cast (behind both rains) when the mob is not fire resistant but is magic resistant, this happens almost never in a raid environment.

You shouldnt rain fearing mobs or mobs with mezzed adds that may end up nearby, which rules out a good chunk of potime content. You also get a hefty mana pres off ele gloves. SoS is absolutely a useful and utilized spell.

This thread is great, I hadn't thought much about playing a Wizard in a long time. Now I'm considering adding one as a box with the Mage I intend to play. The tips about the rains, and worrying about the ratio of the spell rather than the just using the latest, that's good stuff.

Do the rains break root the same way normal DD's do? Or is each tick like a DoT where it's just applied?

One of the problems that wizards face in the classic-velious era* is that they turned off the focus effects until Luclin goes live on progression servers which helped a lot on sustainable DPS with single nukes (can't always use rains).
Considering the monk dominance it is surprising they decided to deprive casters from these focus effects without even glancing at the monk DPS tables (which were a much later balancing change).

It is probably a vane hope, but with the much faster expansion unlocks on Mischief/Thornblade I would wish that they would reconsider and* not* disable* focus effects on at least those 2 new* TLPs (if not all future ones).

Rains work more like DDs in my experience, unfortunately.