Wizard Class Leader?

..Though I'm with you on EQ. After a certain amount of knowledge/experience, the game is far from difficult to play at a high level when compared to other games, and is very repetitive to raid/group anything that you aren't seeing for the first time.

Kinda-sorta, but not really.

In my experience, those factors account for far less of overall performance than you seem to be suggesting, and realistically most people don't even do them, (and if am being honest I don't always do them myself these days, especially the longer the raid goes).

Knowing what buttons to press, and in what order, generally accounts for the lions share of your dps, with the remainder coming from those things you listed above. All other things being equal, leading the assist, carefully timing your alliances/instants, carefully AEing etc. will certainly give you the edge over someone who isn't doing those, but generally only by about 5-10%, 15 at the most.


I can't tell you the number of times I've had a Wizard in my group (so same adps) who was doing half my damage and after a quick chat they start doing 85-90% of what I'm doing. And it is never because they lacked reflexes, or situational awareness, or were furiously typing vs nuking, it was because they were pressing the wrong buttons and/or pressing them in the wrong order. I'm sure you've had similar experiences.



The point I'm trying to make is that even though you can distill EQ gameplay (for a Wizard at least) down to pressing 1-2 buttons (I use 2 keybinds, often only 1), to be able to do that (without being told by someone else) is the meat and potatoes of the class.

Anyway I haven't slept yet and I'm starting to ramble and not sure I'm still making sense so I'll stop here.

Hehe, we're of the same mind.

You usually aren't interested in shooting for that extra 5-15% because accomplishing that little bit more rarely changes the outcome of the fight, whereas It's that 5-15% bit that brings me any kind of enjoyment because of how 'done' the rest of the game is already if I'm just coasting.

One thing that I really love about EQ is the vast number of gameplay elements and character growth from 21 years and 26 expansions with only modest effort to consolidate and streamline. That combined with the often sparse, archaic and outdated information about how it works makes coming back to EQ an interesting problem to solve.

I enjoy showing up and checking on wizard discussion every so often. I didn’t take the time to read all the post here, but generally I get the idea that wizards are the same as when I quit.I Personally haven’t played EQ for a while now. (Shortly after TBL was on Farm for 4 or 5 guilds maybe?). I stoped mostly because I think that EQ is a terrible addiction for myself, but also because my class just wasn’t what it should have been in general. (Stoped short of getting all the Procs etc.) I know I could have just started a new character and been more useful as far as DPS or just been a utility class. Aside from the obvious problem I saw with spending unreasonable amounts of time on the game, I couldn’t help paying attention to that /char time log. I had invested something like 400-480ish days into my wizard and in the end it didn’t matter because we where simply out classed. I know that’s child’s play in time played for many of you, but for me at least 75% of that time was spent actually playing. Thats literally a full year of my life! I was not going to change my class because I was not going to invest again. I will always have a spot in my heart for this game and the class, but I have to warn you all... time is short and life goes by fast. Invest in the things that last. Devs if you somehow read this.., I’m not bashing your choices or design. I’m far enough away to realize that it doesn’t matter one way or another how the wizard plays, balances, or who the class leader is. Enjoy the game all

Balanced or not Wizards are cool and imo pretty fun and relaxing to play. I skipped the last expansion, I just couldnt get into it. Hopefully the next one brings some improved wizard dps. I tend to like the expansion that dont raise the level cap because it forces them to give each class something. Cheers!

Dear developers give wizards more boom candy!

Make no mistake, I was all about that 5-15% for years and years. It was just a combination of running real-time dkp, leading raids, raiding on multiple servers, and just in general getting older / life that it's faded a bit. Well that and the fact that in 90% of cases over the last several years Wizards could barely break the top 10 even less the top 5.

hehe, I hear ya. That fire can burn out with age, and a rearranging of priorities. We're only on this earth for so long.

My hot take is this:

Part of the equation is that everyone is getting sustain and burst abilities. This is modern game design to ensure everyone can have the versatility to be useful in various content.

There's really no such thing as burst anymore outside of a classes long duration cooldowns.

If wizards were all burst and burst only we'd be relegated back to 1 shot wonders in group content.

Have we gotten some pulling ability? Defensive cooldowns?

We have spell mitigation.

Maybe wizards just need more flexibility with our burst cooldowns and content should have mobs that need to be bursted more. Maybe uncouple wizard burst from ADPS and melee procs that debuff or proc dd. So that once every 10 minutes we can pop a few AAs to delete a mob. Or top the parses. For a minute or two. Or let is decide if our burst is everything over 1 minutes or split over two separate non consecutive minutes.

Give wizards a bit of a pulling trick, like a big shield that lasts only 30 seconds and a way to stun a mob out of a pack, blink away, drop agro, swing back and pick it up on a two or three minute cooldown.

I have a "lifetap" bandoleer setup using a 1-hander with a lifetap aug (the Strange Triceratop's Horn), the Invested Tome of Obulus with a Token of Rot, and a range item with the Teenta's Sympathetic Stone. 99% of the time on raids I'm using my dps bandoleer, but if I'm dotted and group's druid is dead it might be just enough to keep me alive until the druid is up and back on heals. There's really no reason not to have a couple bandoleers set up for various situations. The only other bandoleer I ever is a mana recovery bandoleer with the Niente's Dagger of Knowledge with a Heart of Narikor aug, the Invested Tome, and an Orb of the Crimson Bull in ranged.

On a separate note, I started a "Wizard Class Revamp Suggestions" thread, and a lot of the utility stuff sounded great and could be added to that post.

We've been here and are still around.