Warlocks did get some spells nerfed but they are still quite strong overall. I have switched to find out just how much stronger.
This is where I land too, and I agree, the easiest way to boost wizards is to increase the refresh of fusion aa from 25% to 40%.
There are obviously a lot of variables that go into parse rankings. Yes sometimes I beat our resident warlock or assassin. But the trend lines consistently show better dps potential for warlocks, ceteris paribus, and the 25% is more or less consistent with my own experience.
I mean, if you take away ascension AND three of the best abilities from any class, what are you left with? What is a warlock without apocalypse, rift, and cataclysm? What is an assassin without assassinate, dagger storm, and fatal followup? Take away 35-40% of any class dps and you will be left with crap dps.
The reason Locks are better are because they rely less on RNG, Apoc, Cata, Rift, Absolution etc are just there on a reliable and continuous cycle. Wizards rely on Fusion resets and Ball of fire/Rays reset to pump up damage and as a result when rng hits you with negative favor you parse low, when it grants you high favor you parse like a mofo. This is why Locks are favored, consistent output with a good rotation and not relying on the RNG gods.
I'm not saying take these things away. I'm saying that compared to other abilities, the damage that the best abilities do are inherently less than other classes. And I hate using ascension as an argument for class balance. Ascension almost always is the exact same among all classes. It is separate from class balance. If wizard topprofessionability_X does 10%less damage than warlock topprofessionability_X, and nothing else about the class makes up for this difference, then warlocks do more damage than wizards. It is common sense, and anyone can figure it out. For example: We can say Incineration, Hellfire, and Fusion do a combined 10 total damage, and the rest of their abilities do a combined 5 damage. If Apoc/Cata/Rift do 15 total damage, and the rest of their abilities do a combined 5 damage, Which class is going to perform better? (What i said earlier was Magmag speaking through me, he is taking a vacation from forums at the moment, courtesy of Roxxly)
The only game mechanic that allows ability doublecast to effect one class more than another is in the case of RNG resets. Will wizards technically benefit more from ADC? Yes, but its not enough of a difference to make them good. Other than that, you offer literally no relevance or meaningful counterargument to what i have posted. I also mentioned nothing about ability doublecast.
there are still a few wizards still around on Majdul that can hold their own..not a completely broken class
Yesterday I said tomorrow. (10:15) training dummy: 52,11B No Erosion of Will, No Detritus Mulcher, No torment. Celestial BoF, GM Rays. Also, I did not do any tricky pre-buffing - you can see it on the over time graph My Full-Ancient warlock can never match something like this, and I am not a bad warlock.
If you have a lot of experience with both classes and have tested them both this expansion I'll have to take your word for it. Maybe I was over-estimating the Warlock ST damage, but the rest of what I said is true. Wizards just bring nothing to the table that makes them great in any scenario right now. You want ST damage? Bring an assassin or a conj. Hell, conjurors also give 11ish fervor to all the dps in the group and assassins have max health debuffs. AoE? Warlock is definitely better than wizard in that situation. They are in as bad as a spot now as I have ever seen and I've played one for many many years. The class description when you go to create one shows what the original design was supposed to be, that they were the glass cannon single target kings. They haven't been that for a long time now. I know people always loved to complain like they were broken because they couldn't play the class properly, but now they're so basic to play and they just don't have the capability to top parses unless your other dps classes are bad or under-geared. All that matters in raids anymore is the number next to "Resolve" in your character window, so it's not like you're really hindering your raid force, but the class definitely needs some love.
I don't think anyone's saying Wizards are OP they are not even close to Assassins this expac but they are competing with pretty much all other classes. As a Wizard i don't win as many parses as I do when I'm a Warlock but i'm usually only 1mil or less behind the classes above me: Conj, Necro, Monk, Lock. My stats are within 1k pot of the others too so it's not like they out resolve or potency me by any stretch, so Wizards although they aren't #1 dps they surely aren't trash. If daybreak devs spent even a little bit of time on them I'm sure they would be top as they compete already.
I'm a man of extremes. If I'm playing a class that's supposed to be the single target king and you have to squeeze out every last point of damage just to barely trail the other people in your raid force then I personally would call that class trash. When I'm maining a T1 I expect to have the ability to top parses or I'm going to main change. Good on you people that can suffer through it, but seeing a wizard sit at 3-5 on parses on pure single target is not sufficient for me. It was a little better at least when the class was fun to play, but since the emergence of left-side prestige it's not even entertaining and challenging anymore. Idk, I guess I'm just sad to see the class I've always loved the most be so terribly mediocre. I've always been able to out-parse people because I worked harder and played better, but that isn't even really possible at this point. I guess RIP wizards for me. It was a good run. But "only trailing by 1b dps" with no real utility should not be acceptable to any wizards out there. I know. You can give it 3-4 people in the group, which is far better than any utility wizards would bring. Plus conj has the bubble option on heavy heal progression fights. Wizards have Ro's Blade, but that's pretty much it. Frigid Gift is not that good now. Again, there's just no reason to choose a wizard right now over anything else. They parse slightly less and have less utility than everybody else. If you guys want them to stay the same then keep preaching about how "balanced" they are.
Dilon- Are you still flowing this thread? I am returning and if I could ask a couple of bits I would be quite thankful?
Hi Glasscanon and everyone I restarted playing again last week after seven years. I was wondering are all the recommended point allocations in original post still applicable? I copied everything exactly as recommended. But does picking the elementalist and changing damage to cold affect the efficiencies of all the fire synergies created by the guide? Thanks
Hi, no, things have changed significantly since I posted the original guide. I will touch on what I think are the most important AA allocations: Prestige : This overall is a very important line. Max out the two AAs that give reset chance to fusion and rays of disintegration. Also take the AAs that add damage to Flames of Velious and that allows for casting Eci's Frozen Wrath. Since you need to spend two more points up here, put them in arcane stormbringer. Then, take the two third line AAs. As for left and right side, put three points in Incineration (left side) and 3 points in Ro's Power to double the damage from incineration. Incineration is a great ability that makes all of your single-target heat spells even better. On the right side take frozen rain, then take Cryomaster and Velium Chill. This will allow you to accrue stacks as fast as possible, and then get a nice damage spike by insta-casting Eci's Frozen Wrath and Blast of Devastation, followed by unloading your frozen rain stacks. If you would rather take hellfire I wouldn't fault you, it's a good damage spell with a quick recast, but you will lose some right side benefits to take it. My math suggests that the split left side / right side build is better overall. Prestige Wizard: The far right AA was useless for wizards for a long time but now is essential to all classes. Go 5 / 5 / 0 / 0 / 5 in the fist full row, and 0 / 1 / 0 / 0 / 1 in the second row. Take Unda Arcanus Spiritus. That is 22 of 25 points. The last 3 are up to you, World Ablaze used to be very important but with the bloat of fervor, 9 additional fervor isn't too much anymore. You could take more hp, or more permanent fervor, or some combination that works for you. Dragon: you want the endline ability for the middle two rows. You need 30 points in each line to unlock it, pass on the top ability for each row and max the others. For the right-most row end line ability, I have long argued that this is not nearly as important to wizards as it is to warlocks because DoT spells are relatively weak for wizards. But I take it and so do most wizards. Heroic: on the top row, increase health and power. None of these abilities are that important but they are prerequisites. Second row, increase crit bonus. Third row, max out mystical overflow. It's not a game-changer but proc damage is always helpful. Since I use blast of devastation (other wizards don't) I max the BoD damage AA. Once you get to 48 AAs you can unlock the bottom three abilities. I rank them as (1) Ethernere Chains (2) Sanguine Sacrifice (3) Mystical Field. In BoL none of them are as important as they used to be but each still has its use. Up to you how many AAs you want to spend to take them, the first only costs 2 AAs but the 2nd and 3rd are 20 and 30 respectively. Shadows: basically a useless line. Personally I boost health in the first row, then boost Magi's Shielding in the next two rows. Last row, I take the mitigation increase and the ice spears boost. That increasing damage per tick really adds up and makes ice spears a much better spell. Wizard: a lot of junk upline, and fiery blast is not nearly as good as it used to be. You at least want to take enough AAs upline to unlock the spell reach AA. The best allocation upline in my opinion is to go 10 to the magi's shielding, 5 to firestorm int he third row, then 5 each for surge of ro and frigid gift. One of the things with BoL is that some of the spells that used to be less important for a wizard have had their damage boosted by a lot. Frigid gift is one of them and you can take it as a GM choice, so take this AA to keep it running as long as possible and keep it on cooldown. What you take after this is up to you. I will say that, since frigid gift is more important now, it's nice to be able to add the melee proc downrow, but it's a heavy AA investment to unlock it, so up to you. Sorceror: I still like this line. All the way to the right, concussive blast is still a good oh **** spell. Go 2 / 10 / 10 / 1 to take it. Anything else in that line is up to you, not essential but some worthwhile things. I take the ward in the 4th row. For third row I take mitigation increase and ward. The end line of this AA tree is Blast of Devastation and as I mentioned before my personal opinion is that BoD is worth taking. It's not going to top your parse but (a) what else are you going to spend the points on and (b) anything that is insta-cast has its use. But again up to you and your playstyle.
Wow, such a comprehensive response! Thanks so much for putting so much time and effort into replying just to help someone you dont even know. Im so appreciative Going to spend a couple of days now on my Monk and try to remember how to play him He's lvl 100 so plenty to do. Just as soon as I get back on my wizzy I will make the changes exactly as recommended. He jumped to 120 so quickly - I couldnt belive how much XP Luclin dished out. Literally 10 levels in a couple of hours. Thanks again - Cheers and safe travels Mattyhack
