The Wizard: Master of the Short End of the Stick?

I must say I am very happy with my sorcerer, soon to be wizard. The only disappointment is that we are "elemental" users, but we are missing key elemetents: Earth and Air (and water but I guess cold is the substitue for water). I think we get some very nice cold, fire, electricity, and I guess the air component can be incorporated in summon shadows, etc. But I want to have meteors pummel my enemies, I want to summon an elemental of each type (which really should be water, earth, fire and air). I want to summon gusts of wind to debilitate my enemies.

What would really be nice is if you could select 1 of 4 flavors at each level and 1/2 level. Fire ball or snow ball, Breath of the tyrant or some type of earthquake spell.

But I am happy with this route, fire is devastating, and the cold options are equally nice (I use blaze and ice speak equally, and they do just about the same damage).

I'm a level 28 wizzy and spend a fair deal of time both in groups and solo. Are wizzes over or underpowered? I can't tell, I have only played this class to this level....

What I can say is that I am easily able to solo mobs 6 levels above me, 7 proves 50/50 so I don't bother.. So in short fights, I rule

In groups I dish out a lot of damage, but due to the mana used to cast the spells, the battle had better not last long.... That is the only thing restricting me spamming specials... power My typical battle plan in groups is simple

Debuff/DoT
DoT
Debuff/DoT
BoF
TB
TB
BoF
TB
time to regain mana then start again

As you can see, my first three attacks do not directly do any damage, but they do DoT and they do debuff making my BoF and TB hit harder. Maybe people are forgetting this aspect of our game, we are not pure nukers, we are just very very good ones

As an Illusionist who groups with a lot of different classes, wizards and warlocks are clearly my favorite DPS choice. I really get anoyed at scout dps groups. Yes, an assassin can out damage you, ON ONE TARGET, but pull a group of mobs and a wizard far out damages any scout by a long shot it's not funny. Running in a group with 2 wizards through runnyeye is about 2-3 times faster than one without one with assassins in their place.

I frankly feel more sorry for scouts, at least in dungeon crawls that have plenty of AE fights to almost require a wizard or warlock.

It's fairly clear that scouts are supposed to be the masters of single target dps (wizards aren't far behind).

It's also clear that sorcerers are clearly the masters of AE combat by a long shot.

Seems fair to me in a system where AE fighting is so common and easy to pull off. They even made your AE's not break mez. Your AE dot too (make sure mez on the bosses are stuck prior to landing the AE dot).
Message Edited by Padien on 12-15-2004 01:43 PM

25 Dirge here, visiting your boards... can't believe it, you all sound just like us! I really thought that all my complaints about Dirges were important and legitimate, but if every class is whining about balance then what?

OMG! I must be a baby!?!

just kidding.

But it does feel good to know that nobody on these boards, regardless of class, is happy.

Thank you, Wizard Community, for the gift.


Gobi, Crushbone Server

"omg scouts do around the same and sometimes more damage than me in different situations"

"omg mages do around the same and sometimes more damage than me in different situations"

sounds like a nice balance to me

Personally I don't consider a group to be decent without at least one scout and one mage.

look at it this way.

if all scouts are whining that they think each other is better, were balanced :smileyvery-happy:

omg scouts do more damage then me
omg mages do more damage then me

that means were balanced then lol each class feels that the other is better, so obviously there is some department that one is lacking and made up for by the other, otherwise, few would play the other class that "does less damage"

add root and thats solo tactics, for group it doesnt do any good. why? you run oom, PM is the key, i get more then 100 mana from PM adept1 at lvl29, also use harvest if its a real long fight(adds, dump mana quick on first/mezz other then dump when 20sec **** mez is over, then PM, harvest, debuff, bof, PM, bof, bot....)theres always sume time to cast PM inbetween, that keeps ya always on power, usually always the one who runs oom last. at 30 we get another such spell also castable on others!
a healer might be a good choice :smileywink:, and from 30 on we get more and more of the 2 PM, harvest, and manatransfer lines, you can spam those, not nuke at all, and make ur group survive where others wont. ALL mage classes have to be played smart, not "im a wizzy, i must nuke, better then all others" mages dont get their plenty diffrent spells for nuthing, but MOST have their uses(pyre is real useless, found a cheap adept, still useless, even at master 4 that spell would be useless, just another cosmetical thing but replace it ith sume fun gfx spell, sumetin like meteors hitting the target while it dances, castable on others, now that would be a real fun spell,and sume tool to pay back for that bow one, or graven embrace, hate my sk friends doin that without need), i mentioned downtimes during ruch hour real suck?

I agree this game is REMARKABLY well balanced everyone thinks everyone else is more powerful ... guess what ... noone is more powerful than anyone else just powerful in different ways which is great makes each class somewhat unique therefore fitting a certain players style more ... I say just enjoy what you have because if you complain enough out will come the Nerf Bat and guess what everything will be screwed up then because SOE does not have a good track record when it comes to balancing classes via nerfs

You should be throwing some Freeze/Blazing intimidations as well as Benumb/Tongue Twists in. They make a huge difference in terms of how much damage your tank will take.
Likewise I throw in painful med and discretionary flow after the first BoF.

If you ask me all of you under 32 are not understanding at all. Our prime time dps is sub 32, from there is all down hill. Resists are rediculus for me at least. Our dps steadly goes down as we level, You will see and be disapointed like me, while predetor clases go up. Man wish I was back to lvl 29, I think that was the prime time dps for wizzies, in varsoons anyway, now im happy when I land a spell at 33 in runeye :/. Play another class, you will see, we are gimped at higher lvls.

I wasn't going to be posting on this, because it seemed so foolish, on every board there is a thread about how **** a certain class is. Out of my four slots I now have 1 of everything, even a healer though I hated the role in EQ1. Admittedly I mostly solo with him, but hey.

Currently my Warlock does very impressive DPS, I never have a problem finding groups, I don't worry about resists to much. My spells are all at App3 or Adept1. No Adept 3's cuz I haven't been able to mine/harvest any rare drops, ever, but I digress.

The biggest complaints I see from Wizards is the apparent lack of DPS? How can this be? Wizards get more dots than Warlocks do and I start every fight, group or solo, with dots/debuffs. That's the only time a resist can annoy me is if those get resisted. Damage increase REMARKABLY with those landed on a mob, not just your damage, but everyone's. I believe at level 16 you have 3 dots, all 3 of which are debuffs if I recall correctly. At apprentice 3's, these dots are doing what, 50 damage a tick combined or so at level 16, 17ish (if memory serves). This is -immense- damage at those levels, as a Warlock I dot constantly!

Any wizard (who gets more dots) who doesn't use them -especially- for their debuff factor and then complains about their DPS and resists, needs to get a clue, or make a scout/fighter where they will be happier.

Level 38 illusionist here, and wizards are far away the best DPS I ever group with. Not for single target DPS. Anyone can do that, but AE dps. With AE's, wizards reduce a fight to 1/3 the time it would take a scout to do the same thing. For single target DPS, the difference is barely noticable (of course everyone has breeze on).

Maybe you've been in Rivervale too long, that is a bit of a scout haven. It's also the most boring place I've been yet. Head into some dungeons again, Runnyeye rocked for AE, and every group I went there with always looked for a wizard or warlock first, a scout was only for evac purposes. Cazic-thule looks to have AE fights again.

AMEN!

Wow I really need to stop reading these stupid forums.. I go here to get some insite on higher end game and all I see is people going Im a **** Im a ****.. well if you think your a **** re roll end of story stop posting that we are bad.. make one post with issues dont make several posts stating that we are gimpy..

I know my grammer and spelling sucks

golly gee

At 25 my only compliant of the class is the Highest Magic Damage chart on eq2players.com. Sure, the assassins get to own the Melee Damage chart, after all they ARE assassins, but for Christ's sake, they get the Magic Damage too? Makes us look quite inferior imho. Imagine, you're starting a group, you checked the charts today, everyone in the top 100 Melee and Magic Damage is a scout, and you need some dps. Who do YOU invite? Granted those figures are all based off of HO damage, but 90% of the population does not know this. As for the "reality" of it? We still wtfpwn sustained damage. As we should, as we were made to do.

I was looking at that too. I'm guessing they are bugged. The highest damages are coming from level 24 swashbucklers and such. Obviously they aren't really doing magic hits. Maybe it has something to do with crafting or something of that nature.

I have to chime in on the positive side...hate me if you must:

I really really really love my wizard. I played a wizard in EQOA (Broken console game for PS2 but thats a diff subject) and my role there was a damage dealer period.

I enjoy the fact that we bring support to our groups in this game in the way of cure arcane, wards and stuns. I find the class to be extremely challenging to play well and have racked up an [expletive ninja'd by Faarbot]-load of debt refining the craft (45 rank in total deaths on my server). Playing your wizard well IMO is more than just how much damage you can deal over another class or whats the highest con mob you can solo.

We are dependent on groups for the most efficient grinding for xp, higher level quests etc. In turn, we provide very good damage to our groups and some interesting survival tactics when the crap hits the fan (root/stun and run). No we can't take hits well. I never looked at a picture of Merlin and thought that physically he could pound the crap out of someone nor take a pounding. I think the description of our defensive capabilities warn you of this before you build your toon.

I've helped out on the Enchanted Lands access quest at least 5 times and I am surprised at how fast the healer can get the tank back up in HP once i remove the weakness debuff using cure arcane. This has saved my groups **** as much as a mezz, evac and spam heals have, so I feel very useful in my groups and I havent even bragged on my damage (which is always ticking since I spam 4 DoTs at the start of a fight).

The bottom line is this, there is a way to play your class effectively and some classes are more of a challenge than others. Forgive my ignorance because I have tried no other class other than a mage in this game, but I am going to assume that wizard is one of the most complicated to play. If I am wrong, that is fine too, real life goes on.

The only gripe I have is the lack of spell drops and silver/coral to upgrade spells. Then again, just makes me not hesistate to drop coin on what I need when the opportunity presents itself.

Learn your class before you scream nerf. If you still dont like it, hit delete, try another. Wow freedom of choice is a beutiful thing!
Message Edited by Kucastank on 12-17-2004 06:44 PM

just surfed the warlock forums a bit , they basically have the same spellines as us but poison/disease, quite exactly the same. them even a bit weaker in the single DD section but slightly stronger on aoe, ya know what em do? they praise emself hole day!

To append to what the last poster said, in your low 30s you receive two power transfer type spells which have proven on *MANY* occasions their ability to give the healer that little bit of power he needs. It also gives us an alternative class use in an instance where our DDs aren't worth wasting mana on.

In any fight (when not using HOs. Please don't try to give me a lecture on the usefulness of HOs if you're level 25 because you really have no idea.) I am using the spell queues in a type-rotation of sorts to ensure that I am *always* casting a spell. There's absolutely no time in between casting spells as there is always something to cast.

I suppose my complaint is more along the lines that I chose this class to be able to make things go boom. To see that the top 100 magic damage hits are all coming from Assassin's is obviously not going to thrill me.

In fact, I took one of the poster's advice from here and parsed out my damage... and my results supported my original post. Our dps, even when we are paying no attention to our utility side of spells, is absolutely not in line with the scout classes. Our dps is closer to that of a monk in an offensive stance.

lecture about usefull HOs:

part 1: arcane insight: started by warrior followed by a mage flash: 3minute buff that increases disruption and evocation skill
-> you do more damage and get resisted A LOT less from mobs far above your lvl
when to use: on a WEAK mob BEFORE ya have a HARD fight, get the mob down to 30%, make the group stop doin any dmg but the tanks taunts and autoattack, tank initiates, you trigger it, when you get unlucky and get storm instead of insight, repeat, once ya have insight buff, kill it off, and instantly pull the hard one once all have mana, repeat once during the hard fight(while its still on or it gets hard to complete a HO with you getting resisted only) if you are the only dps. if group aint dependant on your dps,->transfer mana.

part 2: arcane chalice: started by a mage followed by a priest hammer: instan group health and power replenishment!!
-> very usefull for fights wich cry for evac/run/crylikeababy cause they last to long and people runnin oom.
start to chain it when peeps get low on mana and you expecting the fight tolast a while longer(mezzed adds, repop while oom, mob with 3 arrows(man those are enduring), mob far higher then you group.)

a scout can be helpfull flipping those wich ya dont need

either you get resited a lot in these logs(use HO buff or get a bard) or you arent nuking.
or ya just in the wrong place. again, where we really shine: AOE
also, a monk is real nice DPS class, as is bruiser, EVEN if you do only monk dmg to single targets, why should that be downgrading? and whats so wrong a scout outdamaging us on single mobs?

im mosty grouping with peeps 5 lvls higher then me, specially for deep runny i like the tank to be just in xp range, most of the time im lowest lvl in group and do the most dmg and save our butts all day with mez when we have no chanter.


sume lil damage overview:
start of with aoe dot/debuff(regardless if single, it stacks and helps a lot)-> ~200
icy coil ~300
incinerate ~100 STAM debuff
BoF ~180
BoT ~420
PM ->sweet mana
BoT~180
icy coil ~300
incinerate ~100 STAM debuff
BoF ~420
BoT ~180
stiffle/stun
BoT ~180

that no stops in casting, in case of no resists: ~2560 dmg in 30seconds and ya at about 50% mana, ya can repeat it once more
then ya have to trow in a PM, harvest, PM if still not evrythin dead and can nuke for another 1k dmg. havent seen any scouts who can top that even 5 lvls higher then me(29 myself atm) to nuke mobs wich are 36 or higher tank pulls a lower one before -> insight, dont get resisted from even lvl39 mobs. with 2 other castertypes in group(ie summoner, chanter) and their sweet int buffs i dont bother about HOs at all and eat the 30% resists from 36+(~80% resists without those int buffs)