When do wizards start doing damage?

I recently returned to the game after about a decade away. I level up many of the classes to try them out. I also leveled the 3 tradeskills to give the classes expert skills. Once they got 16 I took each one to wailing caves. When trying to kill the heroics(lvl 14) in there my assassin does it really easily , so does my dirge which is a support class. I have also tried illusionist, defiler, and necro. the only one that does less damage than the wizard is the defiler. When I took the wizard in the caves he can't kill anything. He dies in about 3 hits and his damage is just pathetic. The wizard spells have long cast times but do less damage than the scout skills which go off almost instantly. Also they seem to have taken 1/2 the damage of the wizards nukes and turned them into a dot portion which I don't understand at all. Whatever the reason it makes the wizard feel very weak.

I mained a wizard on eq1 for many years so maybe I got a bit spoiled. To me though this wizard feels like a glass cannon with no cannon. Does it ever get better?

our guild wizard at lvl 125 consistently parses 800 billion to 2 trillion dps.i know of others who parse higher. so yes,gets better. you are going to have to level up past 16 im afraid

When does it get better though? I'm currently playing on TLE server. So if the class doesn't get better until say level 100. There is no sense in playing one now , or maybe it gets better once AA are released. Which is also a long ways away on TLE.

I just don't want to spend a month or 2 getting him to 50 just to find out he stays this weak.

On TLE if posible research master the low level wizards core nuke(s)ASAP, make sure a debuff is used to help your nuke hit the best it can. hex doll debuffs work well & cast on the run. You can't take hits, root to keep mobs off you- melee once the scout/tank has aggro. Any damage shield/procs on the player taking the hits. I understand how slow the wiz casting is on TLE good luck, blow them UP!!

I read something about researching skills to master but when I went to check the NPC out, they weren't there. So I figured that isn't on TLE yet. Is there a way to do that on that server?

Thanks for the advice about hex dolls will try that out.

Check out the second post.

https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq2/index.php?threads/spell-research.588738/

thanks for the link.

I kinda just skimmed over the second post as I didn't think the poster understood my question. Which may be my fault for not explaining it better. After me saying I haven't played in around tens years and then telling me the class parses over 800 billion really doesn't help me much. I have nothing to compare that to as I obviously haven't been raiding. For all I know other classes may parse 100 trillion. The person asking me to wait for the tank/scout to take aggro also didn't seem to understand. So I will try to explain it a little better.

Thus far I have played 6 classes, giving them all crafted gear and crafted expert skills. Of those 6 classes this is the only one that cannot complete quests that require you to kill heroic npcs. The healers kill ungodly slow but can at least kill these npcs. Meaning I have to skip these quests. I've been on Varsoon for about 2 weeks now and can tell you there are no groups until you have leveled up. I have my /lfg up all day and never get an invite, the lfg list on the game is always empty(except for me). So there will be no tanks/scout to take aggro. I'm fine with soloing to level if the class is fun and competitive. As of level 16 it is not, it is much weaker. So I'm trying to find out is it always going to be like that, Will I only ever be able to kill the weakest stuff solo. Because it seems you'll be soloing about 90%+ of the time. So no matter how good they are at raiding or grouping , if that doesn't translated to soloing you're going to be miserable 90%+ of the time.

Hopefully I explained it a bit better that time.

You asked about researching spells to upgrade them. You don't do that at an NPC, you do that in your knowledge tab.

Spell research skill starts at 20 level, its fast so research to master your core spells first. you may also find master spells on TLE broker cheap. strive to master as many spells as you can. What I meant about wait untill tank has aggro is because your big nuke will pull the mob to you. Can try root mob before you nuke. If solo root and nuke is about the best way for a low lvl wiz to kill stuff. Hex dolls has different effects, one of them debuffs your main spells..you can cast hex a doll while you are moving. a good start is cast debuff spell and/or hex doll while the tank pulls, or as soon as you root a solo mob-debuff the solo mob. Good luck, main point is yes wiz have huge damage even on TLE servers low levels. good luck

The problem with root is it only lasts 10 seconds. This gives me about 4 spells if it doesn't break early. Hitting a heroic npc with my 4 highest spells gets it down to about 70-75%. The majority of that damage is done by Magma chamber which is on a 30sec CD , so can't be used again before I die. I'm not able to keep rooting it , as it seems to become immune. So after that I die pretty quick.

my question is: Why are you trying to solo heroic mobs? they are meant for a group.1 up's maybe 2 and 3 ups need a tank.

It originally started when I got a quest from Commonlands to go in there. There is a heroic mob that sees invis that must be killed to get down to the jail. I first did it on my assassin, he killed this mob in about 10 seconds and still had 80% life left. Next I did the quest on my Dirge he took longer to kill it but still maybe 15-18 seconds. Next I tried wizard he got the mob to around 50% in 15 seconds and died (tried many times). I just found this very odd since wizard is supposed to be a dps class, that's all they really do, yet the dirge was out dpsing him and assassin straight up embarrassed him.

So anyway I came and posted here to find out what the class is like later on. I was expecting one of 2 answers. Either this is a sustained damage class which over the long run will catch up in dps. In which case I will delete the character as I have no interest in that type of class. They are ok in group or raid but not at solo as they need another character to have aggro to reach their full potential. Also I find that type very boring to play.

Second thing is maybe they are just a slow starters and eventually get some more front loaded damage , so they can blow some stuff up, instead of going squish in 15 seconds. Where then I would tough it out until it got better.

People who have posted have been very nice in giving advice to make things a bit easier, and I do greatly appreciate them helping. No one has really answered the question though.

(to any replying to this- I am having back surgery in the morning, so it will be a few days before I can reply.)

My wizard got very scary powerful around level 20-30. She usually takes seconds to kill everything around her these days (lvl 125) and that started around level 40-50.

he's on varsoon

Do they have levels 20-30 and 40-50 on Varsoon?

of course. the OP however, is level 16

Yep and they asked when a wizard starts doing damage. The post you responded to stated that their wizard "got very scary powerful around level 20-30" and got even more powerful starting "around level 40-50." All of that directly answers the OP's question.

It's been a LONG time since I played a Wizard. My very first character actually.

My personal experience way back when was that it wasn't DPS that was so much the problem as it was a lack of crowd control, and weak AOEs. Single targets, or small mobs my wizard could handle. Anything more than that was squish like grape.

Sounds like things have changed for the better. I may have to dust her off and give her a trial run.

Just putting your LFG tag on doesn't help you find a group. Use the chat channels. Most channels, especially the LFG channel always has people looking for group or starting groups and looking for more.