While I agree that mitigation should play some part in the balance, you failed to take into account positioning. While mages have less mitigation, they also do not need to stand underneath the mobs to do their DPS which lessens some of the need for that mitigation. Rather than base the ranking around solely mitigations or positioning or utility (which, as you stated, is not really worth much in a lot of cases anymore)... it would be more interesting to see the DPS rankings more based around skill cap (which would include all of the above metrics and more). Of course, that can be fairly subjective so is probably not feasible.
Oh well. To start with .. I am playing warlock (and char was born back in time when game was released .. I seen some ups and down before I retired 10 years ago - like root neft that totally killed ability of warlocks and wizards to solo (it been fixed thou at around KoS time) but back to the topic I have a bit different vision ... Sin/Wizard - single target best .. BURST DPS Rng/Lock - AoE targets best ... BURST DPS Swash/Conjur - AOE target best SUSTEINED DPS Brig/Necro - Single target best SUSTEINED DPS Beastlord situational best DPS Chanters/Bards - T1.5/T2.0 DPS classes + utility Some might say why the hell mages should be in the same brisket as a scouts they use cloth armor and scout chains .. but guess what .. mages are ranged combat and scouts (save RNG) are melee combat - and that is a reason for different type of armor EQ1 had in this department better balance Why was re-balance/nerf bat swing happened? - Well ... since AoM (as I understand) most of the raid fights become very short - matter of few minutes at most ... in this type of fights OBVIOUSLY classes with highest BURST DPS were coming on top of the ladder and classes with high SUSTEINED DPS falls behind .. Solution was make a variety of raid encounters from fast brutal to endurance fights (although no one like endurance fight ) and should that made a case balance would be seen at will - any endurance fights (longer then 15 minutes) instantly would propel utility classes to the needed spot (like chanters for if nothing else power refreshment role) and sustained DPS class as major source of DPS on such fights ... it did not happened .. instead DB beefed up sustained DPS classes and in same time nerfed burst
I think everybody knows who I am and how long I've been doing it. Now that thats out of the way, lets just skip the first page of this thread because I have no idea whats even going on. But there is an issue here: Wizards need some serious love. I thought when I came back and started raiding with a well-known force, that I was just rusty. And Im sure I was/still am a bit. But this class, the class I have played since 2004, hardcore since 2006, Has definitely fallen behind. I seeked out other wizards' parses expecting to see them competing for the top spot. None were. They say locks are the kings of ae. OK, cool. Wizards are not the kings of single target. Not even close. AE fight with a bunch of targets? I can do ok. Maybe third if I can get these old fingers flying like they used to. But single target not a chance. So why is this? Maybe someone smarter than me can post up some spreadsheet or something, but I'll just go with my gut. Our recasts are too long. (Relying on Ethereal Conduit to parse well is bunk), and our stuff just isnt hitting hard enough. (I will never get the hardest hit on a single target. used to everytime. Now I ~might~ get an 8 target FB highest hit, but its not guaranteed). I get that people are resentful towards us still. I mean we ruled for what? KoS till DoV? But seriously, I know my mechanics, I know this game, and I know my role in a raid. It isn't adding up these days. also to the people saying wizards just stand back out of ae range....no, not in a long long time has that been viable. inb4 I'm bad. I know. Thanks.
Don't get me wrong on my previous post. I wasn't implying mages could avoid all AE damage; I was more countering the "scouts get more mitigation, so should do less DPS" argument. That being said... yes, Wizards/Warlocks should be, at a minimum, competing with Assassins/Rangers for top DPS.
I am not going to comment about warlocks. Theres enough of that around here already. Wizards sure are not however.
It was a looong time ago when I made this toon. So long ago, in fact, that I rolled a Mage on the character select screen, not a Wizard. I have recently returned to EQ2 after a very long break, joined a guild, leveled from 50 to 100, geared a bit, and now run heroics. We don't raid, and don't plan to do so. It's there that my comment lies. Back in the day, Wizards were king of blowing stuff up, and after learning mechanics, and getting a lot better at nailing down some sort of priority casting order for my class, I'm left scratching my head a bit. First, let me preface this by stating that I love my Wizard; specifically the way it plays, and the fact that it's very "think on your feet" when it comes to rotation and priority. However, it seems that even our heavy hitters, like Fiery Blast isn't quite the "OMG This Rocks!" that I expected it to be from reading 2 year old info. Let alone Manaburn (once touted as one of the Wizard defining spells), which I find little reason to blow all of my power on. I can do fairly well on Multi-target encounters (well, as well as can be expected in Heroics), and decent on Single-Target, but I'm always lagging behind our resident Assassin. I have been chalking this up to the fact that we generally always have a Dirge in the group, and not a support class that favors casters. Has this been anyone else's experience as well or do you all find the disparity is far less visible in anything but raids?
Yes sir, when I played wizard in AoM I felt like trying out my Sin again, so I lvled him to 100 and put some gear on him and I already then saw that the sin class has way higher potential in most situations. Better utility, better DPS, much easier to play and a lot less situational. I was an old time wizard myself, from PoF expansion until the release of RoK when I quit the game the wizard was strong, I was always top of parse. I came back in ToV and rerolled a wizard. I didn't like the changes they had made to the class with the increment system, alltho that was the only valid spec. I spoke with Sacdaddy sum and he gave some shortcuts when I was "relearning" the class, and in ToV wizard wasn't bad, ever since it's just gotten worse and I've given up on it. To quote Koko: "Wizard is good Singletarget dps in AoE encounters" Probably a year ago since I had the "wizard chat" with Koko but that stuck on my mind because it pretty much sums up the class, and that's boring!
I'll pwn ur FB highest hit with a single click on dev of war while I'm picking my nose and watching series, any day of the week! Not joking!
i mean it is what it is. dev of war is an outlier, a diety ability available to most of the population ( all if betray) so cant really use that one or deathtouch on heroics as an example. Maybe as I L2P a little better and ascend from ~2700 pot in raid to infinty or whatever and cap my critB things will get better, but Im kinda doubting it from what ive seen from people better than me. I was told by someone I trust that they enjoy the challenge. I understand that, I do too. But a challenge just becomes frustration when the tools you're given just dont compete. I think we need something that really pwns single target. I'd like to be the flip side of a warlock.
Gear makes a huge difference. We know you're good at the class. Just keep plugging on gear. Infusing (both plat and regular) helps a ton as well. I sit around ~4-4.5k pot with normal group/raidwide procs up during battle. Spikes to 6k during FC. That's making a huge difference in relative parses.
/start rant The biggest thing that I have noticed is that I rarely get the largest hit anymore. I always thought that was our thing. Another class might do more DPS in a long fight, but at the end of the day I at least got that one nuke for infinity damage that made everyone's jaw drop. Even a terrible wizard should be able to nuke hard enough to make a scout jealous. I feel gimped. My spells don't feel like they are hitting hard enough. The only wizards that I know that deal extreme damage are lucky enough to have the right ethereal weapons and gems. I understand that better gear is always going to increase your damage output, but I feel like in equal gear I am simply not as competitive as I should be. I don't neglect my melee stats - ranged weapon always going. My Fiery Blast rotation is solid for single target, small group, and 8+ AOE fights. I don't have a problem surviving encounters. Tanks proc with their ranged ethereals for a bazillion damage in AoE fights. Scout DPS is absolutely ******** once they get their hands on a couple Lacerators or the right bow. As a wizard, I don't feel like there is a piece of gear that will "unlock" my full wizard potential. Even if there was, I think it's wrong that the devs would make a certain piece of gear a requirement for being able to compete with a class. I feel like the whole "stack" mechanic is holding us back. So many classes have amazing burst DPS now that in heroics mobs are often dead before I have a chance to build up and really start doing damage. Sometimes I hold onto my stacks just to have instant cast damage so I can at least parse something. I hate that the cooldown on Fiery Blast is so long. I hate that manaburn is pointless. Maybe we change E'ci into something different so it doesn't render Ice Comet worthless? I hate pooping in public places. I hate that I have a hard time reforging away all that melee haste into something useful. /end rant
It'd be nice if the "burn" spells got a revamp. Lifeburn and manaburn would work similarly to soulburn where they're instant cast and convert "X" amount of life/mana to burst damage. That could give wizzies a nice big single target nuke and give lifeburn a reason to be cast again for necros.
Yeah if they'd only fix things along the way instead of waiting for all the little things to stack up and make a class ****. Manaburn needs to be bumped A LOT in dmg OR be instacast. Increments is a very punishing system and some other valid prestige spec is required but the left side is very very bad, especially considering that one of the cool things there is the enhanced manaburn, but manaburn is useless! Fiery blast gets worse and worse and its not even cool anymore. Make it chargeable with one spellkey and executed with another, just like the bards RO-VC, that way it can atleast be charged on big AE and saved for a proper spike hit on the named. The base casting speed of it is too long also. Everything is going so fast now that the the slow casting wizards can't keep up. Elemental debuffs are too few, wizards ice Spears is lame compared to how much nox a sin debuffs for example. In raids it don't matter much I spose but in heroics it does. Wizard needs something for Singletarget DPS, maybe a clickie like the warlocks that turn the greens into reds but change the blues instead with increased dmg. I dunno, brainstorm!
I dusted off my original character for ToT and this is what immediately struck me... Wizards gained too many new AOE's since the old days. The simplest solution may be to boost the existing left side to the point that from 2s to 25s of an encounter is so devastating that everyone in the group mistakenly asks who cast Devastation of War. That would make Wizards single target Demigods without adding yet another layer of increment complexity. Also scale manaburn properly or remove it as a boost from left side.
thank you for the kind words man but i must admit i was high or something (guessing) when i said ~2700. Its more like 5.3k potency for me at all buffs going. Its still a freaking hard expansion to rock a pointy hat.
As someone who has never played a wizard, but have main raided as both a warlock, necromancer and troub, I've seen raid parses on all these for a long time. Never has it been more clear that wizard has lagged behind and needs some serious love. And a lot of these comments have the exact right idea. They need a jaw dropping nuke.
easiest thing to do devs: adjust manaburn to be the OMG nuke it originally was. Do that and youve made left side viable again, and allowed wizards to compete.I'm not gonna talk about Lifeburn cuz while similiar, they are not the same and honestly, from what Ive seen summoners are in a decent place right now. Someone (I believe koko) said that "wizards are good single target dps in an ae fight". I find that comment actually quite well defines my spot right now. I'd like to see wizards be the kings of single target dps mages. Flip side of the coin to warlocks. I'd even give up alot of my ae stuff to be there. i.e. spec left side. thank you for reading
Since the class gained so many aoe this and that over the years that can't be removed i.e. Mystic Overflow, Blast of Devastation, Hailstorm, etc... .... as a longtime primary Wizard player would you really want just Manaburn back to EQ1 level of uber or would it be your preference to "convert" all the AOE damage output from all the abilities that can't be gotten rid of into a single target damage focus? What I'm thinking is a Wizard Class Ability that does for all AOE or Linked spell damage what the Focused Offensive does for Guardians AOE AT into Flurry. So maybe left side prestige "enables" all the non-prestige based AOE's to do damage based on the number of targets but only actually "sums" it up on the single target you happen to be focused on. This would be in addition to the Manaburn changes you request. That too much?
