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Glasscannon's Wizard Guide

Discussion in 'Mages' started by Dilon, Sep 18, 2018.

  1. Dilon Active Member

    Glasscannon's Wizard Guide

    Introduction

    This is a guide I've been tinkering with for quite a while. I've tried to write it for a broad audience, including people new to the game, new to the class, or experienced players who may just be looking for ways to push forward. I don't claim to be the absolute best parsing wizard in the game, nor do I claim to be the authority on all things wizard. I hope that this guide is informative and encourages discussion, be it from questions that are unanswered or points of disagreement that you may have.

    Here is my EQ2W profile for the curious.

    I have organized it by:

    I. Profession & Epic Spells
    II. AA selections
    III. Ascension
    IV. Determining Cast Order
    V. My current casting order, with exceptions
    VI. Other Tips

    I. Profession & Epic Spells

    In Everquest 2, the wizard class was traditionally the class of elemental (heat and cold) damage with a particular focus on very high single target damage attacks. They are the counter-class to Warlocks, whose focus is on poison/disease and aoe damage. There is a lot of chatter about whether the classes are balanced. The prevailing thought is that Warlocks are ahead at the moment, especially when you are in a group that likes to mass-pull lots of encounters. I have played this toon as both classes and I think they both have exceptional DPS potential. But the path to high DPS is narrower for a wizard, if that makes any sense (probably not). Anyway, like any class on a live server, effective playstyle utilizes a combination of profession spells, Alternate Abilities ("AA"), and ascension abilities. The "class-defining" profession spells are:

    (1) Fusion: a point-blank aoe with frontal range only. After you complete the Epic 2.0 questline you gain the ability to cast this spell at range. For some reason the range is hilariously long, like almost 200 meters. When you pair this spell with the Fusion fervor rune and with the Epic 2.0 buff, this spell becomes extremely powerful. It is without a doubt the best and most important of the wizard's profession spells.

    (2) Rays of Disintegration: enormous single-target DD spell. At grandmaster it is roughly equivalent to the apprentice/journeyman level of any level 2 asenscion DD but with shorter cast and recast times.

    (3) Ice Comet: Another large single target DD spell. However note that (for this expansion) this spell has been largely replaced by the Prestige AA ability Eci's Frozen Wrath, which is aoe and does approximately equal damage to the expert/master version of Ice Comet.

    (4) Ball of Fire: single target DD. The damage is not as great as Rays of Disintegration but the recast is about 3x shorter.

    (5) Firestorm: point-blank aoe that deals very good damage and has a quick recast.

    There are obviously many other abilities, including other damage spells as well as buffs (both permanent and temporary) and crowd controls (root, stuns, a crappy mez). I do not want to have information overload, so I will leave it to the interested wizard to review the other spells and familiarize themselves with the nuances of the class. But these five are the bread and butter spells of the profession. If, after reading, you have questions on spells I did not list feel to ask.
    In addition to the profession spells, the Wizard Epic 2.0 abilities are Magistratus and Fury of the Magus. Needless to say both should be upgraded to as high of quality as you can get. If you need to prioritize then I recommend upgrading Magistratus first. Magistratus allows Fusion to be cast at range, adds a second damage event to the spell, and adds a proc that increases fervor after it is cast (although in my experience the triggering of the proc is spotty). The damage event added by Magistratus scales by the Epic 2.0 ability tier and is independent of the underlying quality of your Fusion spell. The second damage event at comparable level to fusion will do more damage. The second damage event will also benefit from the fusion mastery rune, which is why Fusion is such an important spell.

    Fury of the Magus is a flat fervor/overcap boost for 13.2 seconds, at Ancient level it is a 25.3 fervor boost.

    I have heard a rumor that next expansion the Epic 2.0 will no longer be a best-in-slot item and that the Epic 2.0 abilities will be auto-granted. As of this guide that is not live, so if you want to contribute to heroic groups or raids you will need your Epic 2.0 done and both abilities upgraded as high as you can get them.
    Doobius40504, WhysperWynde and Feara like this.
  2. Dilon Active Member

    AA Abilities: Here is my current AA setup, starting with the prestige lines first:

    [IMG]

    Prestige Wizard: This one is very straightforward. 8 for the health and 8 for the potency. I go for two second line skills, one for added aoe protection and one for potency boost. I will note that I see many people putting two points in the crit bonus boost instead of the aoe immunity but there does not appear to me to be any benefit to doing so once you are past the crit bonus cap. Both final abilities are worth taking. World Ablaze is a +9% base potency buff for one minute with a one minute cooldown. You can also detonate the orbs to do damage, which drops the buff to 6% then 3% but resets the 60 second buff duration each time. This is a decent aoe ability as you are levling up but at end game the damage is a very small part of the arsenal. It is better in my opinion to treat it as a potency buff and not a source of direct damage. Unda Arcanus Spiritus is a great AA. It is insta-cast and insta-cooldown and multiplies strong base damage by the number of enemies it hits. Use it as soon as possible when a fight starts and whenever it has refreshed. If you are leveling up and are at a point where you need to decide between these two, take Unda Arcanus Spiritus first.


    [IMG]


    Prestige: I will spend the most time here as I think it is the most important AA tree. You have to allocate 8 points between the top two rows. In my opinion 5 points are critical. Two to disintegrating fire, 2 to frozen thoughts, and 1 for Eci's Frozen Wrath. Eci's Frozen Wrath replaces Ice Coment and is an AoE spell. Disintegrating Fire gives Ball of Fire a 32% chance to refresh Rays of Disintegration. Rays is the single-best DD spell in the wizard's arsenal and it has a long-ish cooldown. Likewise Frozen Thoughts gives Eci's Frozen Wrath a 24% chance to refresh Fusion. So obviously, when you take these spells you should never cast Eci's before Fusion or Ball of Fire before Rays or you are wasting the benefit.

    After this, the final 3 points should be split between Energy Redirection, Frozen Burst, and Arcane Stormbringer as you prefer. I take the added damage to Flames of Velious and Firestorm but I will not quibble with how another allocates these three points.

    The third row, like with every class, both AAs should be selected.

    That leaves 15 AAs remaining to split between right side, middle and left side. Note that if you want to take the end line ability on either side you must commit at least 10 points to that side: 3 to the first ability, at least 6 between the next three abilities, and 1 for the end line ability. So that will leave at most 5 points to go middle or other side.

    Let's discuss the middle AAs first. At third rank, Arcane Surge will add cause the wizard to do additional encounter damage on 45% of hostile spells. As nice as it sounds the damage is very low, and the other abilities surpass it. Likewise, Arcane Tyrant will add a group-wide proc component to Tyrant's Pact. While it's nice that Tyrant's Pact is a perma-buff spell so this is always on, the opportunity cost to take it is too great because you lose the ability to put those points elsewhere. So I recommend that you ignore the middle abilities and focus on either the left or right side.

    On the left side you have the focus on single-target direct damage. Incineration is a proc which adds additional damage to all single-target heat spells. Note that this is a perma-buff ability, not a passive ability, and if you take it you have to activate it before you see the benefit. At third rank it procs 100% of the time. The middle AA in the second row (Ro's Power) adds additional damage per rank, up to 100% at third rank. The damage added by incineration is significant and procs off of the single-target heat spells. This includes Rays of Disintegration, Ball of Fire, Protoflame, Immolation, Magma Chamber, Flames of Velious, Solar Flare, and Incinerate. Note however that even if the underlying spell doublecasts, incineration will not, which is a bummer. There is a DoT component to this ability as well and this damage is not insignificant. What I find is that I rarely allow the spell to finish its DoT component before casting a new spell that overwrites the incineration proc, so for purposes of determining damage added what I do is assume one tick of extra damage per proc.

    On the right side is the "stack" ability, Frozen Rain. This skill allows the wizard to passively accrue "stacks" when they land hostile spells, up to a maximum of 150. It also gives the wizard the Frozen Rain ability which when cast will deal damage based upon how many stacks the wizard has at time of casting. At 150 stacks and 100k potency the total damage is about 150m, and it will doublecast, so this is a significant weapon in the arsenal. At third rank, you will get 3 stacks for every spell hit, and with that you will need 50 hits to max Frozen Rain (firestorm helps tremendously with this). Cryomaster increases the stack accumulation by one per rank, so that at third rank one only needs 25 instead of 50 spell hits to max their stacks.

    Let us acknowledge that both sides offer great abilities worth taking. I recommend them both, so I allocate 5 points to each side, 3 to max the initial ability and two to increase the incineration damage proc and two to increase the number of stacks earned per spell hit.

    So that is 20 of 25 AAs, leaving 5 left. Now the wizard has some choices to make. The endline ability on the left side is Hellfire, which is an additional ability that deals damage based on how many increments of incineration are on the mob. At third rank and at 100k potency the damage is up to 90 million on a .25 second cast. In addition there is a +12 fervor buff for 10 seconds if hellfire hits a mob with 3 increments of incineration. So that's a really good ability because it is not hard to put three increments of incineration on a mob and 12 fervor is still a good boost.

    On the right side end line the wizard is granted an alternate for Frozen Rain called Frozen Detonation. It works in exactly the same way as Frozen Rain except that instead of being a single target spell it is an aoe spell. If you go this route the simple rule to remember is if you are fighting 1-2 mobs then frozen rain will averge more damage. between 3-8 mobs frozen detonation will average more damage. This is also a good ability that adds aoe versatility to the wizard's arsenal.

    Between the 2 I think that Hellfire is the better choice. However, one must also consider the points spent to get to the endline ability and the utility provided by those AAs. On the left side, the 3 points to boost incineration damage are an obvious choice. Unfortunately, the remaining two choices are not as good as the choices on the right side. You can either choose a power restore (Mystical Heat) that triggers when incineration hits 3 increments (this AA also gives some buffs to manaburn but that is an obsolete spell), or choose a group buff (Fire Chains) which has a chance to proc damage. fore Chains has a relatively low proc rate and does relatively small damage so this is not going to significantly boost groupwide DPS. But it is the better of the two remaining choices so if you want Hellfire then take this.

    On the right side, the obvious choice is to take Cryomaster. Iced Anger is useful if you have issues with managing hate. You shouldn't, but if you do, points in this AA will wipe them out. The interesting thing about this AA is that damage numbers and hate accrual are so out of balance that using this AA will put you dead last on hate lists, below even dumbfire pets. But assuming that's not the case, the far better choice is Velium Chill, which at third rank makes Blast of Devastation and Eci's Frozen Wrath insta-cast spells when you are at 150 stacks. My issue with this ability is that Blast of Devastation and Eci's Frozen Wrath aren't parse-toppers. It's not like the Warlock side where max stacks make Apocalypse and Rift instant cast spells. And for me, the insta-cast benefit for these two spells plus the Frozen Detonation aoe is not as great a combination as Fire Chains and Hellfire.

    Thus, I recommend 3 points to incineration, 3 to Ro's Favor, 3 to Fire Chains, 1 to Hellfire, then 3 points to Frozen Rain and 2 points to Cryomaster. With all of this said, given the utility and balance of these lines I will not argue with going 10 points on side and 5 points on right side instead.
  3. Dilon Active Member

    Remaining AA lines:

    [IMG]

    Dragon (92 points): I think that most of these are obvious. You will notice that I max the entire second column. The health and ward are obvious choices, and because I use elementalist ascension I want both the increased mitigation and the stoneskin. As for the two endlines taken, undeath should not need an explanation. Spellbind is essential as an insta-cast base potency buff and I will explain how I work it into my rotation later on. I do not take Ancient Fury because DoT abilities are not a large part of the Wizard's arsenal.

    [IMG]

    Heroic (100 points): I take all 3 endline abilities in this tree which requires 100 points. A lot of the stat increases in this line are obsolete; however I will say that several players whom I respect take the +INT AA in this tree. It's just 215 or so intelligence doesn't excite me. I go for +health/power, +reuse speed, and +damage to blast of devastation and thunderclap. Mystical Overflow at Rank 10 will add about 1%-1.5% to your DPS which is nice for a passive ability.

    As for the endlines, ethernere chains is an A+ ability. Very high damage and a quarter-second cast, plus a snare and de-hate when you need those utilities. If you take a second endline ability it is 20 points and if you take a third endline ability it is 30 points. So given the high cost for the remaining two abilities I will explain why I take both. Mystical Field is great for the anti-AoE effect and also for allowing you to cast while moving. Popping this allows you to cast while repositioning and thus saving that downtime in which otherwise nothing would be cast. It's also a very useful spell for several heroic zones when your group is just looking to clear trash quickly, ie in the Innovation zones or Infested Mesa. The AoE DoT may not seem like much per tick but it ticks 8 times over its duration, so the damage adds up to something beneficial. Sanguine Sacrifice is yet another base potency buff, 1.5% of the caster's intelligence. Given the stat inflation in this expansion, the potency boost will make a difference, about 1,000 potency for me. The spell only takes .25 seconds to cast and lasts for a minute so it is a good pre-pull buff. The other useful component of this is that it converts mana casting costs to health. So for power drain fights this will keep you DPSing.

    [IMG]

    Shadows (29 points): You will notice that I am very stingy in this line. The thing to understand about this line and the wizard line is that those "base" damage boosts are misleading. When you examine a spell, the amount of damage shown factors in your potency which is not part of base damage. So for example you may have a spell that lists average damage of 20 million, and think, '5 points in this base damage AA will add 20% of 20 million, that is nice,' but in reality it may only add about a million damage, and a million damage to one spell for 5 AA points is not efficient use of AAs. So I only take what I need to take to unlock the end-line abilities on each row. Arcane Bewilderment is fast-casting, moderate damage, and has a de-hate component. Thunderclap is also fast-casting and does decent damage inside of 15m. Heat Mastery increases base and critical damage of heat spells; this suffers from the same issue that I described above but it's only 1 AA for 5% boost to all spells so it's a little more worth it. You may notice I did not take hailstorm. This unfortunately is one of several wizard AA skills of very limited usefulness. The warlock counterpart, plaguebringer, is still a very strong spell. But hailstorm is not in my rotation and given this it's not worth spending two points on it.

    [IMG]

    Wizard (29 points): Another line I am very stingy in. The Sentinel's Fate row of abilities has some decent options. But the cost to get there - 70 points in the tree - is too high. In this line I take the Magi's Shielding ward, at max rank it is about 2 million damage which isn't much anymore but certainly helps. In addition to the Magi's Shielding ward I take Ball of Fire an Fusion buffs for the improved radius, and Surge of Ro and Frigid Gift buffs for the improved duration. The only expertise skill worth taking is the +range/radius buff. Iceshape and fireshape have been made obsolete by the level 10 ascension skill buff. Manaburn has been obsolete for a long time due to the enormous difference between health pools and mana pools. You may also notice that I did not take any of the endline skills. I am simply not willing to drop 70 points in the line to take them, they are not that essential. And lastly you will notice that I am not spec'ed into fiery blast. Fiery Blast has been broken for a very long time. The way it's supposed to work is that you activate it, it records your damage done over 10 seconds (direct damage only, no procs and only the first tick of DoTs), and at the end of 10 seconds it repeats a percentage of damage done as a direct damage attack. One could imagine how useful that is if the numbers it tracked were accurate. But I have tried many variations in my casting rotation while fiery blast is active and I can never get it to hit for an amount that would justify the enormous investment of AA's to unlock it.

    [IMG]

    Sorcerer (100 points): The second from left line provides lots of good stat utility: +movement speed, +ability casting speed, +ability reuse speed, +ability recovery speed. Taking these also gives you more flexibility when reforging. The middle line, I take +mitigation and +damage absorption. These are smallish amounts but this mitigation AA when paired with the shadows mitigation AA is about +3400 mitigation. Add in the boost from the Dragon AA, plus the plate armor available to all classes, and my mitigation is good enough to eat some hits and stay on my feet. The fourth from left line provides a decent magic damage ward, +base spell damage, and reduced mana cost for spells. Freehand Sorcery looks tempting from the description but it is not a base potency buff and therefore it not worth taking or casting. In fact I do not use any of the top-line abilities, they are there only because I need to put two leftover points somewhere to unlock the lower-line abilities. The fifth line is the de-hate line. The +defense and -hate gain are fine, but I am really only in this line for concussive blast which requires 22 pre-requisite points. Concussive blast is an insta-cast aoe with damage, de-hate, and stun components, it's a very versatile spell that will help you in a pinch.
  4. Dilon Active Member

    Which Ascension to pick?

    My preference is for Elementalist. In addition to good damage spells and very good utility spells (de-level and combat mitigation debuff), the elementalist gets two good fervor boosts for spells that naturally deal elemental damage (i.e. the wizard's entire arsenal more or less). The only drawback is that they take a long time to cast - I do wish that they'd drop the casting times slightly. At ancient level, Elemental Channeling will buff the wizard's fervor for elemental spells by 38 for 35 seconds and Frost Pyre will buff the wizard's group fervor for elemental spells by 16 for 45 seconds. And, as with any ascension class, the Level 10 potency buff should upgraded as high can you can get it.

    Elementalists also get Pact of the Fire Tyrant which at ancient level is a static +30 fervor buff with the detriment of being unable to benefit from wards. In fights where I can afford to be aggressive I keep this on. If things go to hell, ie the tank dies or I start taking significant damage, I will toggle it off mid-fight. I also keep it off when our raid is going for flawless achievements. As I mentioned above, to mitigate the drawback of Pact of the Fire Tyrant I take the +mitigation AA's discussed above. I also take the AAs that negate aoe damage and late in this expansion all classes have access to some plate armor (The Hateful Schnoz, Planar Pauldrons, and Planar Chest). And even though it negates wards I do still take the warding AA's because there are enough times when I toggle this off that having the ward benefits are substantial.

    The damage spells are (in order of level) Wildfire, Scorched Earth, Frozen Heavens, Elemental Amalgamation, and Fiery Incineration. Scorched Earth can be improved with two orange runes; Flash Firefrom Yun-Zi adds an extra damage tick and Illuminated Bonds converts the spell into an encounter-based damage spell. Elemental Amalgamation benefits from the orange Paragon rune which adds a second summon making this an extremely effective spell. Wildfire has several runes which increase damage by a small amount, and it is a very good DD spell that cools down more quickly than other ascension spells. Frozen Heavens is a situational aoe, cast it only when there are lots of adds because the damage output per target is not great when considering the long casting and recovery time. Fiery Incineration is a priority upgrade spell because in addition to the damage increasing per rank, the duration becomes significantly shorter.

    I will touch on the three important utility spells in my opinion. The three utilities are Glacial Freeze, Brittle Armor, and Phoenix Rising. Glacial Freeze has a strong damage component but I include it as a utility and not damage spell because it also de-levels the enemy by 1 level, and that is what I primarily use it for. At grandmaster the de-level lasts for 99 seconds so a few elementalists throughout a raid encounter should coordinate their rotation so as to keep the enemy constantly de-leveled. Brittle Armor decreases combat mitigation per increment, resulting in more damage done overall. The effect of this spell can be more than doubled with the orange Fissure of Ice rune which causes increments to increase by 2 instead of 1 and caps it at 30 increments instead of 24. As with Glacial Freeze a few elementalists in a raid should coordinate their casting of this spell to make sure there is always a combat mitigation debuff applied. Finally, Phoenix Rising adds a +ability doublecast to a groupmate which significantly boosts their DPS potential for a short period. At ancient level it is +101 ability doublecast for 5.2 seconds. If you have the planar coins to spare you can purchase the Ethereal Planar Rune which increases this window to approximately 7 seconds. Also at Grandmaster and Ancient levels the spell is supposed to trigger a second doublecast window about 30 seconds after casting; however I have found this second trigger to be spotty. This spell is important enough to coordinate with whomever you are casting it on to know when they want it. If possible it should go on whomever the biggest damage dealer in your group is. And while giving up 3.5 seconds in a fight to buff someone else seems sacriligeous for a damager dealer, this ability significantly increases potential damage output of the group/raid so the self-sacrifice is worth it. Even better if the person you are casting it on is also an elementalist and can return the favor.

    Thermal Depletion and Bulwark of Rime are not spells that are in my regular rotation, however if anyone wishes to change my mind on this I will listen.

    Now having said all of that, etherealist and thaumaturge are both very good to pair with a wizard as well. So I will leave it at that.
  5. Dilon Active Member

    Determining Cast Order

    Ok, here's what you came for. First, the best thing I can recommend is to lay out your abilities in Excel as best you can.

    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet...wWF_ll36SYGq5uj0lwkscSIXr6afSK4n04jFf/pubhtml

    I have uploaded a copy of mine into Google Docs so you can get an idea of how I organize it. The damage amounts are a bit outdated but what's important is seeing the damage potential of the spells which will generally stay the same relative to each other. The column next to the name of the spell is for average direct damage. The next column is for per-tick damage of dots, if applicable. I've also included a column for added damage if affected by incineration and you took that AA. Then casting time, recovery, and duration of dot if any. For insta-cast and/or insta-recovery spells I use .1 second just to account for human input in moving the mouse, etc. The second tab contains some modifiers, for example if you have the Fusion fervor rune, if you have maxed out your cast and recovery speeds, and if you have maxed doublecast for the tier you are at. I know this seems like an involved step but I really do recommend it. Because once you've laid out the numbers in this fashion, casting order tends to fall into place.

    With such a complex set of abilities, there are many ways to dissect the information and ultimately what I choose to do is pick the output that most closely approximates the spell's intention. For example, Fiery Incineration does the most total damage to a single target out of any spell in my arsenal. But it is also a long cast, long recovery, and a long duration. So it is not appropriate to frame this spell as "DPS at casting" or "one tick DPS" because this will skew the total damage downward by quite a lot. Likewise, Rays of Disintegration does most of its damage upfront, with a relatively minor DoT component over a relatively long period (and only if you took the Incineration proc). So, the best use of this spell is as direct damage and to allow for an average of one tick of incineration as most of the time the DoT will be overwritten by other casts. So for this spell I take the "one-tick DPS." If I were to view this spell as DPS over the duration of the DoT component of Incineration, then it would look much less useful. So keep these points in mind.

    Note also that Protoflame, Furnace of Ro, and Elemental Amalgamation do not have damage listed in the tooltip. In order to approximate the base damage of these spells I used a training dummy and a training monkey, used smite of consistency, and then these spells. I also did the same thing against some "live" bosses as well. Using the figures derived I solved for the base damage of these spells. The numbers may not be perfect but I feel that they're a decent approximation. For what it's worth, protoflame is a very good DoT and Elemental Amalgamation, when upgraded and with the Paragon rune, is really, really good. Furnace of Ro is not as important.

    Based on my toon, the highest total damage spells, regardless of casting, recovery, or duration, against one mob, are:

    1. Fiery Incineration (1.34b total damage)
    2. Elemental Amalgamation (672m)
    3. Scorched Earth (647m)
    4. Fusion (603m)
    5. Frozen Rain 150 Increments (329m)
    6. Protoflame (246m)
    7. Rays of Disintegration (213m)

    Another way to consider spells are by highest "Effective DPS" of spells. Effective DPS only factors in the time it takes to cast and recover from the spell. The assumption here is that the fight will last for at least the duration of any DoT component, which means that total damage can be locked in after input (i.e casting and recovery).

    1. Frozen Rain 150 Increments (439m Effective DPS)
    2. Fiery Incineration (357m)
    3. Fusion (344m)
    4. Frozen Rain 120-149 Increments (335m)
    5. Frozen Rain 90-119 Increments (239m)
    6. Scorched Earth (227m)
    7. Elemental Amalgamation (203m)

    This may seem a bit surprising but the reason Frozen Rain is so high is because it is a .5 second cast, whereas Fusion is three times as long, and Fiery Incineration is 6 times as long, et. cetera.

    I'm not going to go through this for every single number of mobs (and whether they are linked) but you get the idea. I will just do one more, for 5 mobs, to illustrate how Effective DPS can change depending on the situation:

    1. Fusion (1.723b effective DPS)
    2. Unda Arcanus Spiritus (1.592b)
    3. Scorched Earth (1.135b but only if they are linked)
    4. Frozen Detonation 150 Increments (843m)
    5. Frozen Detonation 120-149 Increments (642m)
    6. Frozen Detonation 90-119 Increments (458m)
    7. Frozen Rain 150 Increments (439m)

    As you can see, multiple mobs is where fusion really shines. You could drive that damage potential even higher if you factor in the elementalist heat/cold buffs. Unda Arcanus Spiritus multiplies base damage by the number of enemies it hits, up to 8, so in fights where there are lots of mobs this spell is awesome, both in terms of actual damage inflicted and effective DPS. With the proper rune, scorched earth becomes your best ascension in linked mob fights, and the Frozen Detonation spells do lots of damage too.

    So, armed with this knowledge, cast strategies tend to fall into place. Basically, identify how many enemies you are fighting, and cast the highest damage spell that you have available to you.
  6. Dilon Active Member

    Maximizing Spell Damage / My actual cast order

    However, there is still more we can do to optimize cast order. Now that you know which spells will return the most damage in a given situation, you can further improve those spells by pairing them up with the many potency and fervor buffs at a wizard's disposal. You can generally break down your casting phases as pre-cast, early fight casts, then priority casts. Note (and this is important) that what I'm about to describe is my standard cast order on high-tier raid mobs, when fights are expected to last plenty long enough for all spells to finish their duration.

    For shorter fights, doing what I'm about to describe may be counterproductive because by the time you have set yourself up, the fight is halfway over. So if I'm in a good heroic group for example, and we are doing a standard 3+1 coin run, I may skip a lot of this and go straight to casting my high damage spells. As always it is important to be adaptable.

    With that said, let's say I am in raid and we are pulling boss, the fight is expected to last a few minutes and it's more or less a tank-and-spank for DPS. Here is my precast order:

    *. Ro's Blade: This is not *technically* a pre-pull spell but this should be put on any scouts or tanks in your group. If there is a leftover concentration slot put it on yourself if you wish.
    1. Frost Pyre: Technically it's group wide but it's really for you. A long cast which is why you pre-cast it. +16 fervor on elemental profession abilities for 45 seconds.
    2. Elemental Channeling: as stated 35 seconds of +38 fervor on elemental profession abilities. So between the two that is +54 fervor for your highest hitting profession spells. Practically speaking you will get 25-30 seconds of use out of this combo, and 10 seconds or so will be taken up by ascension casting, but it's still very useful.
    3. Sanguine Sacrifice: +base fervor boost depending on your INT stat, also 60 seconds
    4. Worlds Ablaze: +9% base potency boost, 60 seconds
    5. Perfect Being: 5 second cast but +15% base potency and +18 fervor for 15 seconds
    6. Surge of Ro: The profession spell adds a small damage proc to every hostile spell cast by the wizard. By itself it doesn't add much damage but this spell has been made essential with the introduction of new planar class runes, as the sorceror gains +50 crit bonus overcap when this spell is active. So definitely work it into the pre-cast rotation and recast it as soon as it expires.

    Because of Frost Pyre, Elemental Channeling, and Perfect Warrior, this is a very long pre-cast ritual, like 15 seconds or so. Plan accordingly.


    **Mob is pulled**

    Phase I casting- Doing damage but also building up toward peak output

    6. Rays of Disintegration (for the heavy DD and +1 increment of incineration)
    7. Unda Arcanus Spiritus (it is insta-cast and insta-recovery so might as well pop it early - you must be in combat so I use it after first attack spell)
    8. Ball of Fire (For the DD, +1 increment of incineration, and chance to clear cooldown on Rays)
    9. Protoflame (for the DoT, +1 increment of incineration)

    Note - we should now have three increments of incineration on the mob. If something was resisted, cast another spell with incineration proc- I recommend incinerate here because it is unresistable.

    10. Fury of the Magus (+25.3 fervor/overcap for 13 seconds)
    11. Hellfire (for the DD and +12 fervor)

    We are now in an ideal position to maximize damage, with +37.3 fervor for the next 10 seconds in addition to the potency and fervor buffs cast earlier.

    Phase II Casting- Time to lay it on

    12. Fusion (Note - assuming you have the Epic 2.0 ability this will trigger yet another fervor buff, at ancient level it is about 10 fervor/overcap for 10 seconds, so that is 47.3 fervor for the next 6-8 seconds)
    13. Spellbind - I pop this here because this buff only lasts 10 seconds unlike the other potency buffs which are a minute and I want the extra potency on my ascension spells. So I now want my three main ascension damage spells cast in the next 7-10 seconds.
    14. Fiery Incineration 3.75 seconds
    15. Elemental Amalgamation 3.3 seconds
    16. Frozen Rain .75 seconds (if you are at 150 stacks, if not then wait until you are and cast it later)
    17. Scorched Earth 2.85 seconds
    18. Unda Arcanus Spiritus
    19. Wildfire

    If you have done this right then you have stacked all buffs for the benefit of fiery incineration, scorched earth, and elemental amalgamation. Given my current setup, the listed tooltip difference with fiery incineration between "base" potency and "full potency buff" damage is nearly 300 million over the duration of the spell. In a similar vein, the difference between scorched earth base and buffed potency is over 110 million per target over the duration of the spell. On top of this we have manipulated fervor buffs to add an additional 47.3 fervor to these spells. We have also got at least one fusion and at least one Rays in with the +54 fervor buff.

    This rotation covers the first 15-20 seconds of a fight. From here it's a matter of having done your homework and knowing where to go in your spellbook in order to sustain your DPS.

    One final note on this: I mentioned above it's important to be adaptable. One big scenario in which I may go straight to step 13 is if I trigger the Rune of the Celestial fervor buff. I will just pop spellbind then cast my ascensions. A second scenario is when I get Phoenix Rising put on me, I will go straight to whatever biggest damage spell is up. And then, obviously, understand the fight mechanics because you do not want to be unloading your nukes into a stoneskinned mob, for example.
  7. Dilon Active Member

    VI. Other Tips

    Hotbar setup: Here is a picture of my current hotbar setup:

    [IMG]

    Starting from the top hotbar, on the left is my pre-cast rotation going right in order. After Fury of the Magus is Mystical Field, I put it there because it's a similar style buff. The final four abilities on that hotbar are my mana managements and cure magic.

    The next hotbar down is a miscellaneous hotbar. From left to right I start with my temporary group buffs. I had popped a tracking scroll so that's there in this picture but it normally isn't. Next are the two buffs that I put on groupmates, Ro's Blade (goes on all fighters and scouts) and Converge (on the main tank). The next grouping are my damage spells that are only sometimes cast, depending on particular circumstances. Then all the way at the end is absorb magic.

    Down one more hotbar, from left to right are my aoe spells which then give way to my single-target DD spells.

    Then the first hotbar is the most important. I keep my mouse on the right side of my computer so I like to go from right to left in my casting order. You will see it mirrors what I wrote above. Just go right down the line when casting. And for what it's worth after looking at this picture I swapped out Frozen Rain and Ice Comet so Frozen Rain is now in spot 1 on the hotbar.

    To the right are my less-frequently used skills. Balanced Synergy, a manastone, temporary adornments, detriment remedies, glacial freeze (because I do not use it as frequently as other abilities it is over here) and then the ascension utility spells.

    The next two to the right of that hotbar are my buffs. Yes it is two full hotbars. If you have any questions on what you see there just ask.

    Then finally the very last hotbar is travel, tradeskill, evacs, that stuff.

    UI:

    I highly recommend DarqUI. You may see the window in my setup which tracks certain stats. You can set these to change color, flash, and play a sound when they hit certain values. So this helps me track when I get Phoenix Rising and also when my Celestial Gate rune proc goes off. As I mentioned before when that happens I will go right to my big spells, so this gives me the ability to track those skills.

    Focus Effects:

    [IMG]

    Perhaps elementary for a lot of people but if you are new to the game or class you may find this useful. At Level 110 you can take all but 3. So which ones I take are obvious by the screenshot. If you have questions feel free to ask.


    Non-Wizard stuff that is important: To be the best you can be, you need to aim for the following stats:
    - Crit Chance: soft cap of 1400 is easily obtained with PoP gear. I personally do not notice a difference between, say, 2700 and 2800 crit chance.
    - Crit Bonus: hard cap of 4000 but there are lots of items, procs, and abilities which will raise the hard cap. The higher the overcap the better.
    - Potency: no cap, the higher the better.
    - Fervor: The higher the better. Hard cap of 200 but as with crit bonus there are lots of ways to raise the fervor overcap.
    - Resolve: High enough to do full damage to whatever tier of enemy you are fighting, after that not important to keep pushing up unless and until you need more to fight a higher tier of enemy.
    - Ability Modifier: No hard cap. The cap is dependent on the base damage of each spell cast. The higher the better but significantly less important than potency and fervor.
    - Reuse Speed as close to 100 as possible without going over as anything above is wasted
    - Casting Speed over 100 AT MINIMUM but working up to 1,100. At 100%, casting times will be cut in half and there is no further benefit to casting speed, however excess casting speed stat increases doublecast which is essential in PoP raiding
    - Recovery Speed as close to 100 as possible without going over as anything above is wasted
    - Spell Doublecast: 240 needed for T4 mobs. Items with high doublecast are extremely valuable.
    - Ability Doublecast: Ability doublecast is separate from Spell doublecast and if both are maxed then the given AA/Ascenscion/Spell can hit three times (cast, spell doublecast, ability doublecast). It is difficult to find gear to increase ability doublecast. If someone in your group has Phoenix Rising at a high level become their best friend and try to work it out so they pop it on you while you are casting your biggest hitters.

    Reforging helps tremendously with getting reuse, casting, and recovery to where they need to be.

    Also, there are four item buffs which I also consider essential:
    (1) Any item with "Perfect Warrior" buff. This clicky effect is 15 seconds of +base potency and +fervor. It does however have a long cast.
    (2) Snacks: Chebakia and Dolma
    (3) Cybernetic Powerlink
    (4) Thunderous Elixir of Intellect

    You can also make use of temporary adornments. I use Infused Cognizance of Sathir, Infused Fortitude of Sathir, and Maintained Tinkered Injector (x7). However I only use these for raids. In a similar vein you can use Thunderous Elixir of Thorns which adds great DPS but they expire quickly so again I only use these for raids.
  8. Ellimist Active Member

    As a note on why having CB past cap is good in the prestige tree you are specced for double conversion. This conversion works even when you are past the cap. Its pretty easy to test. reforge out of CB but remain above cap and watch your potency change due to the loss of CB.

    The two points don't give much but its some. Its and option some people may want to take.
  9. Rondo9 Active Member

    From the 2.5 seconds that I skimmed over this I stopped when I saw Guarded Awareness, no Ancient Fury and spec'ed for incineration. Considering Incineration is one of top parses and a DoT AF is a must. Also as I tell everyone Wizard hellfire is garbage!
  10. Dilon Active Member

    I agree that reforging out of cb will lower potency.

    But i did not see a change when i spec'ed into the cb bonus. I am at work all day so screenshots will have to wait but i can post them. It's very easy to test, just pull the two points out of guarded awareness and into crit bonus. Again whether i am right or wrong on this i will screenshots tonight or tomorrow.
  11. Dilon Active Member

    Addressing your three points:

    1. I can only assume you disagree with guarded awareness because those two points are not in crit bonus. As with my prior response i did not see a change to either potency or crit bonus when i spec'ed in. But right or wrong i will test the change and post screenshots.

    2. I assume you are talking about fiery incineration and not the profession spell incinerate or the proc incineration. If ancient fury affects ascension then yes i am wrong on that and will change it. If you are talking about the proc, the dot component is frequently overwritten before it expires. If you are talking about the profession spell incinerate you will have to show your math on that being a parse topper.

    3. Why is hellfire garbage?
  12. Rondo9 Active Member

  13. Dilon Active Member

    Thanks for clarifying. You are talking about the AA proc incineration. I agree that the DoT component of incineration is significant. However it also lasts for 28 seconds so spec'ing into Arcane Fury changes this from 7 ticks over 28 seconds to 9 ticks over 28 seconds. It's not a huge difference, especially when the DoT component is frequently overwritten. It's not nearly as important for wizards as it is for Warlocks who get boosts to Apocalypse and Cataclysm among other spells from Arcane Fury. If you were to share the drilldown of incineration on that parse I think it would show that the majority of the damage is posted by the direct damage component which is 4 times higher the DoT component.

    But you are no doubt a great wizard and I appreciate your feedback.

    Can you also share why Hellfire is garbage? I posted this in the hopes that there would be discussion that drives everyone forward.
  14. Bawkan New Member

    If you're gonna post a parse it helps if you show what mob its on.
  15. WeepingAngel New Member

    I always admire someone who is prepared to make a post like this as it does, indeed, provoke some debate about playstyle etc.

    I genuinely do not have the time to go through the whole post, and, to be completely honest, im not convinced you are truely interested in crtiical debate of your choices (the underlying tone draws me to this conclusion) however, here goes with a few random comments

    1. Dragon line column 2, 40+ points to things such as 8% max health increase, physical mit % increase, etc, seem like a misallocation of points to me. There are a couple of raid fights that justify those selections but as a general spec? wasteful to the primary purpose of the class - damage. Cant do DPS while your're dead, I hear you say - well you're a wizard dude, that's part of the job. The viabilty of Pact rests firmly on the healer you have rather than increased physical mit ;)

    2. "I do not take Ancient Fury because DoT abilities are not a large part of the Wizard's arsenal.". This seems a little misguided. Your article ignores the DoT abilities the wizard does have. Some of those, granted, are at best situational and at worst to be disregarded, however, there is enough value there to make additional ticks to the class worthwhile; Regarding Incineration (to be clear, the AA prestige "background" DoT) you do seem to have a downer on this which is odd. The impact of +2 ticks is to have those ticks hit 1 second quicker, however, I think I already know what your attitude to that would be lol ;).

    3. " The Sentinel's Fate row of abilities has some decent options. But the cost to get there - 70 points in the tree - is too high". I find this to be almost provocative tbh D. I think one of those abilites gagging for attention is a +10% increase to ball of fire damage. You are aware of just how much extra damage per minute you are forgoing there...in exchange for what? an extra 25% or whatever physical mit increase in dragon line? I mean, no disresepct on that, but...:D I refer to a previous comment of mine - you're a wizard, what are you supposed to be doing?

    4. Actually, the more I re read...well..I havent got the time to go further so I will leave it to this last comment. Blast of devastation. I mean...Blast of Devastation. o_O Another 10 AA points wasted.


    I think what I would b interested in, along with your comments, is a few parses to see how your ideas look like in practice, ideally, a couple of longer lasting fights? Thats where these kind of discussions rest, in performance data.
  16. Xellium Active Member

    The 10% for BoF in the SF tab gives 10 potency for that spell. Hardly worth the investment. In fact almost none of any AAs in any tree gives the benefit they describe. Honestly there are a few important AA and the rest won't make or break you.

    Also taking health and mit are great ideas as they actually benefit your character in some measurable way.

    And you most certainly want the extra ticks. Just for the simple fact that points elsewhere are mostly pointless and it results in a benefit for you.

    Don't sleep on incinerate, it's a quick casting spell that refeshes incineration. It should be at the top of your rotation.
    Don't sleep on icicles, make sure you take the exponential growth AA. Track it and refresh when it expires.
  17. Seknoot New Member

    Can you breakdown your “static” fervor sources? In other words, non proc’ing fervor granting achievements, items, runes? Looks like you have 181 pct on your profile.
  18. WeepingAngel New Member

    Sorry xellium but i suspect advice like this - Don't sleep on incinerate, it's a quick casting spell that refeshes incineration. It should be at the top of your rotation - is probably why you ended up having to betray to warlock hmm? And yeah I do understand the point you are trying to make D
  19. Dilon Active Member

    On the issue of Guarded Awareness vs. Imbued Sight, I just tested it again and as with the last time I tested it there is 0 difference to any offensive stat.

    [IMG]

    [IMG]

    Unfortunately I did not have my AA tab open in the first screenshot so you'll have to take my word for it, or try it out yourself and post if you get different results.

    So on this particular allocation I continue to believe that taking an AoE immunity is better than taking 2 points in nothing.

    As for the other points raised I will get to them as best I can, I will spec out of the disputed AAs and into Arcane Fury and test on a training monkey. But this will probably have to wait a little while.
  20. Dilon Active Member

    Yes.

    Mythical Epic 2.0 - 35 Fervor
    Heartbound Buff - 30 Fervor
    Pact of Fire Tyrant (Ancient) - 30 Fervor
    PoP Power Raider T2 Achievement - 16.6 Fervor
    Ethereal Mastery Rune - 15 Fervor
    Rune of Witness VI - 13.2 Fervor
    Tome of the Planes - 13 Fervor
    Planar Mastery Rune - 10 Fervor
    Planar Breastplate Level 5 - 6.5 Fervor
    Aspect of Paixao rune set - 4 Fervor
    Elemental Amalgamation (Ancient) - 3 Fervor
    Aspect of Tol'Ren Rune Set - 2 Fervor
    The Hateful Schnoz - 1 Fervor
    Guild Buff (Level 200) - 1 Fervor
    Spirit Stone of Warslik Level 100 - 0.1 Fervor
    Spirit Stone of Et'Kalysh Level 100 - 0.3 Fervor
    Plane Touched Spirit Stone 0.5 Fervor