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View Full Version : So, just how bad are Wizards pre-60


Arclyte
03-04-2015, 08:24 PM
I've got all the stuff to MQ staff of temperate flux, I've got that solists wand from kurns, and I have more than enough cash for jboots

I've got a 46 mage and looking over the spell list the difference in nukes is practically non-existent until ice comet. Quad kiting sounds cool, but not sure how effective it is vs grouping

Master Roshi
03-04-2015, 08:27 PM
once you get to 34 it's not too bad for soloing up, and I find quadding much faster than grouping under normal pick-up grp situations. Ports are nice to have, makes some decent coin for little effort, and you can quest a staff of the wheel in about an hour or two if you can port yourself around or have a friend punt you wherever. 49 sure does let wizzys come into their own though.

sox7d
03-04-2015, 08:39 PM
I've said this a million times on the forums.

I hate min-maxing, I'll invite an iksar shadowknight into a group full of paladins, but as a 60 wizard, wizards have no place in groups.

I've crunched the numbers, they're just so underpowered. At level 60 where nukes/heals are at their most mana efficient, a wizard's most mana effective nuke is only .4 mana/damage more efficient than a DRUID or a MAGE. At level 60, it comes out to be 12 damage/second in a sustained setting. The "root/stun/evac" excuse does not even come close to making up for it.

Wizards are great soloers, raiders and chardok AoEers, but they have no place in a group.

That being said, quad kiting is amazing exp and great if you wanna level a character while learning something or chilling out on netflix for 10 minutes between pulls, but it does get lonely/boring.

sox7d
03-04-2015, 08:40 PM
quote icon is really close to the edit icon

Doil_Boil
03-04-2015, 08:53 PM
Quadding isn't too bad. Having levelled a druid, I actually kind of prefer to be able to go afk for 10 minutes, come back, quad, afk for 10 minutes, etc.

That said, go with a gnome for hide for those long afks.

Decad
03-04-2015, 09:29 PM
Wizards are only desired for raids during Kunark days.

Only in Velious are Wizards more wanted. The real wizards power that brings them to the forefront of desired member in group only came from Luclin onwards which most likely will not happen on this server

Ele
03-04-2015, 09:59 PM
Quadding isn't too bad. Having levelled a druid, I actually kind of prefer to be able to go afk for 10 minutes, come back, quad, afk for 10 minutes, etc.

That said, go with a gnome for hide for those long afks.

Mean dark elf?

Ando
03-04-2015, 10:02 PM
On red wizards are great at all levels.

Also if you MQ staff of temp. flux then you don't deserve to call yourself a wizard.

rajax
03-04-2015, 10:28 PM
This was something even back in 1999 many noticed and Wizard was by far the least popular caster till well into the later game. Not just due to low/inconsistent damage output, it was just boring to many to not have anything unique to offer just nukes till very high levels.

Changing class abilities or adding new things is not in the spirit of P1999.
However, would something like the following spell line added to Wizards bring more value to groups without changing their soloing ability adding an unbalanced damage upgrade or take a unique ability/spell from other classes:

Level 8 spell- Mantra of Flame
Low 5-10 mana cost single target same range as other non-bolt DD spells. Essentially this spell would have an infinite or very long 2-5 min casting/channeling time. While channeling you gain full mediation. Essentially standing meditation that would require a target. You also would deal weapon damage to the target as magic fire damage. This would not use any physical chance to hit, or increase weapon skills, it would have the same resistance as any spell only it uses the weapon ratio to calculate damage/delay between hits. Same damage cap as applies to all weapon damage based on character level.

Now between nukes a wizard in a group could continue lightly but noticeably damaging a target while regaining mana and not sitting for increased threat. Weapon ratio would actually be significant on an int caster for their entire career.

Just like any spell you could not cast it while moving and it requires line of sight, etc. - So minimal impact to soloing other then a tool to finish off a fleeing target while regaining mana. Potentially it would make root + mantra viable but chance to break per hit should keep that quite risky.

Ice & Lightning/Magic versions as higher level upgrades with mid level versions adding either a damage bonus or perhaps a debuff effect to that element might bring greater group utility.

Basically instead of the addition of a pet for added dps or gaining unique buffs the wizard could now continue dealing damage while regaing mana without sitting. Think of it as waving a wand for minor consistent damage while waiting for your mana.

Whirled
03-05-2015, 07:28 AM
^Like ? = http://wiki.project1999.com/Harvest

I have a 56 wizard. Never did any AE groups or other stuff like that, so mostly solo.
If you are not content being a 1 man army, DONT DO IT! Some people are patient and may group with you but others won't even look in your direction unless there's no druid around to port.

Faron
03-05-2015, 08:56 AM
^ all of which other classes are better at doing while also bringing actual dps or other benefits to the group. OP, get click staff. Get jboots. Quad. Get 60. Be valued by a raid group.

Daldaen
03-05-2015, 11:24 AM
Be more than DPS?

you are shit at DPS. find something else. My wizard is often eye pulling, CC'ing, lining up pulls, kiting stuff etc for group. Active on stuns, mega active on bind sight tracking through to find nameds if no tracker in group, whilst still being very close to as efficient as a sit nuke sit nuke wizard, who is a waste of time.

SO many tools at your disposal.

Even with all of these I feel bad grouping on my wizard because there are so many other classes that can do that stuff more efficiently.

Quadding through the high 50s is painful. 54 right now and each quad in GFay guards is 1% or less.

skootr
03-05-2015, 04:06 PM
On live I used to quad in skyfire. Need a fairly big mana pool though, so might not be viable until higher in the 50's with decent gear. Also pathing on P99 is totality different so may not work out too well. I also think the Chroma Drakes (dispelling bastards) on P99 have a bigger range that they dispell at than on live. I remember them only dispelling in close to melee range, but dotting you with a dispellable dot at range. So avoid those at all times.

Kender
03-05-2015, 04:22 PM
this is not WoW

Wiz is about doing light DPs while maintaining >50% mana pool. then shit hits the fan and BOOM dps up the wazoo and crisis over

they're also good at cc but seldom do you see it

skipdog
03-05-2015, 04:41 PM
I think one big point that so many miss, is that many times, your group is limited by the number of mobs available.

My point being, in many dungeon groups, like mistmoore, city of mist and KC, there simply aren't enough mobs to go around for everybody because things get crowded. This means that a wizard is just as good as many other DPS classes and in some cases, better DPS and sometimes better utility. That wizard gets to land a big nuke on every single monster and the wizard actually outdamages many other DPS classes. This is only because there isn't an endless stream of mobs and the group is only able to kill X mobs over an amount of time. In these cases, the only thing that matters is 'how fast can we take this mob from full to dead to quicken the time before it respawns' and the wizard who is unable to spend all of their mana due to the lack of mobs, does this quite well.

Are wizards bad in groups that get to constantly DPS and have constant non-stop pulls? Yeah, they are. Again, the point I am trying to make, is that so many times when groups gloss over a wizard, that wizard would provide excellent DPS and utility to their group, because that group is limited by the number of mobs available to them(cuz they are in a crowded KC or CoM), not by how much constant DPS is being done. Could other classes do the job better? Yes, but in many of these cases, where the number of mobs is the limiting factor, the differences are extremely negligible and in some cases, the wizard is the better choice.

One sad thing to keep in mind though, is that if your group IS limited by the number of monsters available and a wizard is able to contribute positively, your group is getting pretty crappy XP overall. The fact is, if your group is NOT killing monsters relatively constantly, the XP is just so crappy compared to soloing for almost any class, or compared to a group that has endless mobs who is able to kill non-stop.

But if you are in a KC RCY group and are sitting afk most of the time waiting for something to spawn because the place is packed, it is probably more detrimental to invite the Hybrid to your group than it is to invite the Wizard.

Waedawen
03-05-2015, 05:33 PM
They're not bad at all it's just that p99 forums are the absolute worst echo chamber to exist

The single target stuns, the pulling, the CC. Eye of Zomm. Bind Sight. Wizards only good (read: the best) at -burst- DPS so don't hang your hat on doing damage. People have this really narrow view on wizards as 'nukers' but they really need to be played as fucking 'sorcerors.' Straight up Gandalf status.

And as an anecdote, if a wizard has any type of mana buff, from breeze to KEI, the 'oom wizard' stereotype is instantly dispelled. A wizard with c2 is straight up good.

RedXIII
03-05-2015, 05:40 PM
Best class in the game. Send Redwiz a tell in game if you need help with anything.

sox7d
03-05-2015, 06:10 PM
Any 60 wizard who's done HS or Seb knows that the lack of damage from wizards for those zones is palpable and that the "utility" from having a mana reserve, roots and stuns is not worth it, especially given many other classes can as well and their nukes themselves are negligibly better.

Either that or they're in denial.

I've kept the 70% mana reserve, I've kept the seb casters spell locked, I've duck-stuttered evac during questionable times, and I've root CC'd. The effect on the group was still quite underwhelming and a druid can do most of that with only .4 less damage/mana on top of all of their utility.

Aadill
03-05-2015, 06:14 PM
ITT Players determine that Wizards are the new Rangers and that no class is actually worth playing.

sox7d
03-05-2015, 06:18 PM
ITT Players determine that Wizards are the new Rangers and that no class is actually worth playing.

My main was a wizard, retired at 60 because my excel spreadsheets had just confirmed their worthlessness in traditional groups. Not to say they aren't good on raids, quadding or chardok.


I now main a ranger, and have nothing but good to say about them. Hell, my ranger had more sustained DPS at 40 than my wizard did at 60.

Aadill
03-05-2015, 06:21 PM
My main was a wizard, retired at 60 because my excel spreadsheets had just confirmed their worthlessness in traditional groups. Not to say they aren't good on raids, quadding or chardok.


I now main a ranger, and have nothing but good to say about them. Hell, my ranger had more sustained DPS at 40 than my wizard did at 60.

My main is a ranger and I have a wizard alt <3

Tiggles
03-05-2015, 06:23 PM
Wizards are good for Raiding in class C if you don't raid then you won't like your wizard.

Ezalor
03-05-2015, 06:23 PM
wizards are great for pug groups for when shit hits the fan

a.k.a. unexpected repops/adds/a bad pull. a good wizard will evac to entrance and save your group's ass, or have the mana on reserve to nuke the add/repop into orbit. this has saved me many deaths and a good wizard is 100% worth the member slot.

their sustained dps sucks balls though

sox7d
03-05-2015, 06:31 PM
enchanters are great for pug groups for when shit hits the fan

a.k.a. unexpected repops/adds/a bad pull. a good druid will evac to entrance and save your group's ass, or have the mana on reserve to heal the party. this has saved me many deaths and a good anything but wizard is 100% worth the member slot.

their sustained dps sucks balls though

joran
03-05-2015, 06:40 PM
I love playing wizard :) (Im only level 40)

sometimes its hard to find groups though

wizards have a bad rap because we med so much ... some wizards go afk without saying anything (perhaps for longer than a med as well). this shit makes people say "Wiz are always afk in groups" ... which is only partially true :P


PBAoE is flat out the most kick ass thing in the game imho
Quadding is fun .... but im poor with shitty gear ... so I cant quad without running out of mana

Vexenu
03-05-2015, 07:37 PM
Saying that Wizards can contribute to an XP group is like saying that you can eat oatmeal with a hammer. Technically, sure, you could. But why the fuck would you bother when there's no shortage of spoons? In that case it's just an exercise in masochism, which is the same psychology that must be motivating anyone who intentionally groups with a Wizard. Either that or dutiful Christian charity.

I say all this as a guy with a 60 Wizard (who I never joined even a single group with until Chardok).

Pep
03-05-2015, 09:22 PM
This topic has been discussed again and again, and the posts before sum it up already, but meh, here I go:

there already exist classes for situations that get out of hand: enchanter (number one choice personally: charm, mez, root), bard (mez and charm) and the rest of the root-classes (druid, cleric, shaman, paladin, necromancer).

They all bring something to the table: heals, haste/slow, stuns, rezzes, lulls, AC buffs, twitches, tanking, and a long list of etceteras. A group has a maximum number of six players, why fill a slot with a sub-par class? To add insult to injury, most wizards will just sit and leech exp. The class has very little to offer to an exp group, and their players know it.

If a wizard is going to be saving mana in case he needs to quickly burn down a bad-pull or cast an evac, we may all as well put in a half-assed effort and save hit-points and heals and what-not for those one bad pulls. Even better, lets pull single mobs and wait for the whole group to hit full-mana before pulling another single mob "in case something unexpected happens".

The server is pretty mature at this point: most pullers are pretty proficient. And even if they aren't, there's usually someone in the group who can provide tips on how to pull the camp. And even then at higher levels pullers will rather die a champion's death during a bad pull than train their group and cause a wipe.

Not even for porting are they a prime choice (Hate/Sky raids excluded obviously), druids can invis evil races just like a wizard, and more importantly they can SoW. This class is fail, Sony/Verant did a fabulous job balancing all classes, wizards are the only glitch.

All in all, wizards may be an excellent class to control 0.5% of the bad pulls that the chanter has no mana to lock. Me, I'd much rather focus my group on performing great on the other 99.5%. And for the record, I'm also one of the people who wouldn't mind (too badly) having yet another hybrid penalizing everyones exp if that player is at least sort-of fun or just needs some exp.

Kender
03-05-2015, 10:05 PM
This topic has been discussed again and again, and the posts before sum it up already, but meh, here I go:

there already exist classes for situations that get out of hand: enchanter (number one choice personally: charm, mez, root), bard (mez and charm) and the rest of the root-classes (druid, cleric, shaman, paladin, necromancer).

They all bring something to the table: heals, haste/slow, stuns, rezzes, lulls, AC buffs, twitches, tanking, and a long list of etceteras. A group has a maximum number of six players, why fill a slot with a sub-par class? To add insult to injury, most wizards will just sit and leech exp. The class has very little to offer to an exp group, and their players know it.

If a wizard is going to be saving mana in case he needs to quickly burn down a bad-pull or cast an evac, we may all as well put in a half-assed effort and save hit-points and heals and what-not for those one bad pulls. Even better, lets pull single mobs and wait for the whole group to hit full-mana before pulling another single mob "in case something unexpected happens".

The server is pretty mature at this point: most pullers are pretty proficient. And even if they aren't, there's usually someone in the group who can provide tips on how to pull the camp. And even then at higher levels pullers will rather die a champion's death during a bad pull than train their group and cause a wipe.
Not even for porting are they a prime choice (Hate/Sky raids excluded obviously), druids can invis evil races just like a wizard, and more importantly they can SoW. This class is fail, Sony/Verant did a fabulous job balancing all classes, wizards are the only glitch.

All in all, wizards may be an excellent class to control 0.5% of the bad pulls that the chanter has no mana to lock. Me, I'd much rather focus my group on performing great on the other 99.5%. And for the record, I'm also one of the people who wouldn't mind (too badly) having yet another hybrid penalizing everyones exp if that player is at least sort-of fun or just needs some exp.

most pugs, the puller will train the group and often end up being the only one to survive

sox7d
03-06-2015, 02:03 AM
This topic has been discussed again and again, and the posts before sum it up already, but meh, here I go:

there already exist classes for situations that get out of hand: enchanter (number one choice personally: charm, mez, root), bard (mez and charm) and the rest of the root-classes (druid, cleric, shaman, paladin, necromancer).

They all bring something to the table: heals, haste/slow, stuns, rezzes, lulls, AC buffs, twitches, tanking, and a long list of etceteras. A group has a maximum number of six players, why fill a slot with a sub-par class? To add insult to injury, most wizards will just sit and leech exp. The class has very little to offer to an exp group, and their players know it.

If a wizard is going to be saving mana in case he needs to quickly burn down a bad-pull or cast an evac, we may all as well put in a half-assed effort and save hit-points and heals and what-not for those one bad pulls. Even better, lets pull single mobs and wait for the whole group to hit full-mana before pulling another single mob "in case something unexpected happens".

The server is pretty mature at this point: most pullers are pretty proficient. And even if they aren't, there's usually someone in the group who can provide tips on how to pull the camp. And even then at higher levels pullers will rather die a champion's death during a bad pull than train their group and cause a wipe.

Not even for porting are they a prime choice (Hate/Sky raids excluded obviously), druids can invis evil races just like a wizard, and more importantly they can SoW. This class is fail, Sony/Verant did a fabulous job balancing all classes, wizards are the only glitch.

All in all, wizards may be an excellent class to control 0.5% of the bad pulls that the chanter has no mana to lock. Me, I'd much rather focus my group on performing great on the other 99.5%. And for the record, I'm also one of the people who wouldn't mind (too badly) having yet another hybrid penalizing everyones exp if that player is at least sort-of fun or just needs some exp.

I was with you until that last line. You know a hybrid exp penalty just means they're treated as ~2 levels higher, right? If a group has a 25 rogue, 22 shaman and a 24 enchanter, if they invite a 23 ranger, they'll have the same leveling speed as if they invited another 25 rogue (per kill).

NizmerThafen
03-06-2015, 09:55 AM
A level 60 wizard in Velious with http://wiki.project1999.com/Hsagra%27s_Wrath and http://wiki.project1999.com/Porlos%27_Fury finally gives them a notable edge over all other classes in terms of raid dps. They can easily do 20,000+ damage per raid target assuming the dragons or giants are not immune.

Outside of raid targets, ports to Sky and Hate, and AE groups they are at the bottom of the list in most aspects.

koros
03-06-2015, 10:58 AM
A level 60 wizard in Velious with http://wiki.project1999.com/Hsagra%27s_Wrath and http://wiki.project1999.com/Porlos%27_Fury finally gives them a notable edge over all other classes in terms of raid dps. They can easily do 20,000+ damage per raid target assuming the dragons or giants are not immune.

Outside of raid targets, ports to Sky and Hate, and AE groups they are at the bottom of the list in most aspects.

Rogues and well geared monks can usually outdo that unless a fight is extremely short.

Daldaen
03-06-2015, 11:03 AM
Rogues and well geared monks can usually outdo that unless a fight is extremely short.

Not with the AC on some of these mobs.

EQsale
03-06-2015, 11:30 AM
A level 60 wizard in Velious with http://wiki.project1999.com/Hsagra%27s_Wrath and http://wiki.project1999.com/Porlos%27_Fury finally gives them a notable edge over all other classes in terms of raid dps. They can easily do 20,000+ damage per raid target assuming the dragons or giants are not immune.

Outside of raid targets, ports to Sky and Hate, and AE groups they are at the bottom of the list in most aspects.

hmm 450mana per cast and say you got 3kmana pool thats only 12k damage nowhere near 20,000 ++ haha and consumes 2 peridots per cast hmm ya wizard sux unless your raiding in class c as mentioned b4

Orruar
03-06-2015, 11:36 AM
Rogues and well geared monks can usually outdo that unless a fight is extremely short.

Given that they'll probably be training at least some mobs around in order to engage the named more quickly, an extremely short fight is going to be the goal. 70-80+ man zergs will be the norm in Velious. You can quote me on that.

koros
03-06-2015, 11:40 AM
Wiz will be able to med/harvest during the fight, and after spec kicks in, it's 405 mana per cast. 20k+ isn't unreasonable for a fight that's a few minutes long.

A rogue with Str of nature, avatar, VoG, predator, and aura of battle can't hit 80-100 dps on Velious raid targets? That's kind of surprising, especially if they have Velious weaponry. Even a meager 75 dps ends up at 22500 on a 5 minute fight, and I'm sure they can beat that.

If this is the case maybe Velious raid mob ac is too high. It was never noticeably high on live, no one even thought about mob ac until Luclin.

EQsale
03-06-2015, 11:41 AM
do you think theres gonna be 5min fights on p99 really?? really

koros
03-06-2015, 11:42 AM
Given that they'll probably be training at least some mobs around in order to engage the named more quickly, an extremely short fight is going to be the goal. 70-80+ man zergs will be the norm in Velious. You can quote me on that.

That's true. But in that case, who cares how much dps you can do.

Tuljin
03-06-2015, 02:21 PM
Any 60 wizard who's done HS or Seb knows that the lack of damage from wizards for those zones is palpable and that the "utility" from having a mana reserve, roots and stuns is not worth it, especially given many other classes can as well and their nukes themselves are negligibly better.

Either that or they're in denial.

I've kept the 70% mana reserve, I've kept the seb casters spell locked, I've duck-stuttered evac during questionable times, and I've root CC'd. The effect on the group was still quite underwhelming and a druid can do most of that with only .4 less damage/mana on top of all of their utility.

Lets address this P99 echo chamber phenomenon and talk about facts -

There's all this talk of different classes doing things "better" and "more efficiently" than the toolset that a Wizard has. This is belief loaded, and many of these classes that are included in this group are considered pariah for groups much like Wizard.

Some facts -

1. The Staff of Temperate Flux is incredibly versatile and probably the best insta-clicky pull item in the game. It is very valuable for picking mobs at the end of their path, picking mobs off a train, spamming and pulling agro off someone that shouldn't be getting it, and also excellent for keeping a nice chain pull going as someone mentioned previously.

If you actually play Everquest and actually play a Wizard (~both~ of which very few people do) instead of just spreadsheet-jockeying the strength of this item becomes very apparent very quickly.

2. Wizard is the only class that has DD single target stun, a bona fide snare, and root in one toolbox. In EQ the physical manipulation and placement of mobs is very important, and these three skills combined with the Flux Staff result in very powerful CC and mob manipulation.

Snare is always useful in dungeons and in fact very important to have in dungeons. It makes the mid-level (and high-level) dungeons much more manageable and provides unique agro kiting opportunities. A snared caster mob stops casting when they flee - which is one of the many ways Wizards reduce and nullify the threat of caster mobs.

What other classes have bona fide snare? Ranger and Druid, both pariah.

3. Fetter is the best root in the game and Wizards get it at 58 just like Enchanters. Its the preferred CC for melee mobs. Its very powerful and sticks every single planar and non-planar mob that isn't MR incredibly effectively.

Also, with clean pulls, AOE mez really isn't necessary. What does everybody on Red do about it?

4. The Thunder Strike line of interrupt nukes is highly underrated and a very powerful tool at all levels. It is even MORE powerful proportionate to total mob HP in old-world zones, and even in Kunark Draught of Jiva makes very short work of Shaman and Wizard mobs in Seb. Coupled with 2 stuns in your spellbar you are valuable ~and doing something that nobody else does/has the resources to do~

5. Wizard has excellent resist gear, and contrary to popular belief it is very useful in dungeons. Wizard can pull caster mobs very well and generate enough agro to park them wherever they want in camp without the melee puller having to worry about catching multiple spells on a pull. Stun and LOS Rooting is a perfectly effective way of splitting many stupid caster splits, and with levels and resists you don't have much to worry about.

6. Evacs were designed for dungeons. We sit in our own filth for hours a day criticizing the flaws of the geniuses that created Everquest 15 years after the fact, but anyone arguing this fact must have access to hallucinogens the likes of which I would be interested in procuring myself.

Everybody who joins this tired ass discussion and contributes with only vitriol is assuming that anywhere you travel to in Norrath there will always be the magic combination of classes that will cover the abilities of the Wizard -without- having to wait around for 2 hours to assemble this dream team.

Let me ask you this - - when is the last time you grouped with somebody that can snare? When is the last time you grouped with somebody that has a DD stun that even used it? (Clerics, im pointing my finger at you - in fact they never cast root either - - ) When is the last time you grouped with -anybody- that casted a single CC spell other than the Enchanter?

Its easy to jockey spreadsheets and imagine a world where all classes are available to group with at all times, dealing damage with the absolute best items in the game. In reality this really isn't the case.

Once-upon-a-time Chardok AOE wasn't a steady RMT money machine like it is today. Once-upon-a-time for a long time Chardok AOE was -very- irregular. How in the world did Wizards hit level 60 back then? Especially when a very active forum contributor even admitted that quadding Kelethin guards at 54 gets barely 1% xp per pull?

The only other option past Ravishing Drolvargs outside KC (which loses steam around 54) is TD Raptors (dangerous and not worth the hassle if you don't have an Epic Cleric Alt parked there, which many of us at this point take for granted 4 years into Kunark) Either that or grouping.

When I was getting my levels in a guild that was already all 60s I had no help getting XP. I was well aware of the fact that posting up /LFG will never get me a group. What did I do instead? Sat at Seb entrance, invited any old scrub sitting there with their thumb up their ass LFG, and make groups of 4 or 5 work ~just to move the god damn XP bar~ Say what you will about Wizard from behind your excel spreadsheet and world of constantly running Chardok AOE, but I'll tell you what - these rag-tag groups that made it down into Chef and Disco camps mid-50s with no trouble and keeping the camps broken up juuuuuuuuuuust fine and killing mobs at a juuuuuuuuuuust fine pace were possibly directly because I took the reins and made the group happen.

Knocking out nasty spells make a Druid healer perfectly fine. Enc or Necro want to charm and haste a pet? No problem, I'll make sure its stunned if it breaks (unlike Clerics) Need to CC caster mobs without an Enc mez? No fucking problem, I will agro, LOS root, and keep the roots stacked. NP

The point is, we can't all wait around for this "perfect group" that everyone talks about and never happens. Fuck, all anybody ever does is duo Monk/Shaman or PLVL these days. Rogues can't do ~a single god damn thing~ to mobs without a tank and a healer. Nobody even wants to group with a Druid, either. Or a Ranger. Just stop it.

I was/am fortunate to have great EQ friends that didn't have a problem playing with me while leveling with me. We actually had a ton of fun. Hows this for a hypothetical group mid 50s - Monk, Druid, Wizard, Necromancer (add an Enc for a 5th) How many of you have ever even played with this group composition? 0. How many of you have successfully shredded the Hole, all Seb camps, and HS with this group? 0. This is just an example of some of the odd groups I've contributed to even make such an odd class combo not only possible, but effective and ~good~ And guess what? At the end of the day we were a group of players/friends who were good enough (and impatient enough) to not want to sit around waiting for this "perfect" group instead of actually moving the fucking XP bar, which at the end of the day is ~always~ faster than sitting around waiting.

Yes, the Druid isn't much weaker than the Wizard at DPS. So what happens when you have BOTH a Druid and Wizard casting some nukes? How about someone with a Flux Staff succesfully single picking Hole mobs without training the entire city and leading the way through the zone safely, making Superior Heal and Group Regen just fine for healing?

How about when you have both a Necromancer and an Enchanter with charmed, hasted, weaponized pets who have absolutely no qualms about doing so because they know theres somebody there who will ~every single time~ make sure their charm break is stunned? How about an Enchanter who doesn't have to worry about his pet AND having to cast an AOE mez on every single hideous train pull that comes into camp because actually the Wizard is pulling, root CCing, and getting casters into camp and killed first? How about the Wizard getting up and keeping the chain pull going while the melees don't have to leave the mobs they are dealing DPS to? This in itself is a contribution to the DPS of the group without ~actually~ dealing DPS. This cannot be quantified on a spreadsheet.

This is also an example of ~a group of good players using the abilities available to them to enhance the effectiveness of their group and the other classes present and also try to have fun playing 3-4 year old content~ Wow, thats a novel concept and approach to P99, isn't it?

By the way, sitting at 50% or 70% mana is complete bullshit. In dungeons I sit around 20%-30% and play catch-up once in a while on melee mobs.

And this is really the point - EQ is a very fun game because of the dungeon design/mob behavior, not because of the limitations of a particular class. Playing the game with odd class combinations with other people is what makes the game ~fun~ and that is when you are really exploring/challenging the content. I have lots of fun on my Wizard and I got him to 60 "the old fashioned way." I learned these zones on Wizard and know them very well, despite how much Wizard "sucks."

I admit "fun" to some people is playing Battlefield 4 between Chardok AOE pulls and even associating with the jackasses that frequent that cesspool. Tomato/tomahto. BTW, are you playing EQ or Battlefield? How are those RMT bans working out for ya?

People think there's some magic difference between "raid" zones and "non-raid" zones and it affects their playstyle/mindset. Really the difference is "bosses" vs "everything else." Trash in raid zones isn't much different from dungeon mobs and they have to be snared, stunned, stopped from gating, stopped from healing, CCed, etc just the same. This talk of other classes being better than a Wizard on a Hate port is bullshit - Wizard is the only class that can drop the necessary DPS with a Sunstrike to stop a Spite Golem from gating with minimal "ohshitohshitohshit" on a portup. Also can stop Liches etc from gating, Clerics from CH, etcetc. I have been responsible single-handedly for saving many "oh shits" on Wizard. This is not much different from your contributions to a "regular" dungeon. Trash in the new planes in Velious won't be much different, either.

TL - DR : Enough spreadsheet jockeying and actually play a wizard. Then join the conversation. Whens the last time ~anybody~ even grouped with a Wizard, let alone a good one? Or a Ranger or a Druid or any of the other classes who "are more efficient at the same things" but actually not at all and you won't even group with them, either?

Raev
03-06-2015, 02:31 PM
Given that they'll probably be training at least some mobs around in order to engage the named more quickly, an extremely short fight is going to be the goal. 70-80+ man zergs will be the norm in Velious. You can quote me on that.

LOL WRONG





















































































Velious zergs will be 100+, of course.

Nirgon
03-06-2015, 02:51 PM
Finish epic, collect the staves again for resist gear

profit

Erydan Ouragan
03-06-2015, 02:53 PM
Lets address this P99 echo chamber phenomenon and talk about facts -

There's all this talk of different classes doing things "better" and "more efficiently" than the toolset that a Wizard has. This is belief loaded, and many of these classes that are included in this group are considered pariah for groups much like Wizard.

Some facts -

1. The Staff of Temperate Flux is incredibly versatile and probably the best insta-clicky pull item in the game. It is very valuable for picking mobs at the end of their path, picking mobs off a train, spamming and pulling agro off someone that shouldn't be getting it, and also excellent for keeping a nice chain pull going as someone mentioned previously.

If you actually play Everquest and actually play a Wizard (~both~ of which very few people do) instead of just spreadsheet-jockeying the strength of this item becomes very apparent very quickly.

2. Wizard is the only class that has DD single target stun, a bona fide snare, and root in one toolbox. In EQ the physical manipulation and placement of mobs is very important, and these three skills combined with the Flux Staff result in very powerful CC and mob manipulation.

Snare is always useful in dungeons and in fact very important to have in dungeons. It makes the mid-level (and high-level) dungeons much more manageable and provides unique agro kiting opportunities. A snared caster mob stops casting when they flee - which is one of the many ways Wizards reduce and nullify the threat of caster mobs.

What other classes have bona fide snare? Ranger and Druid, both pariah.

3. Fetter is the best root in the game and Wizards get it at 58 just like Enchanters. Its the preferred CC for melee mobs. Its very powerful and sticks every single planar and non-planar mob that isn't MR incredibly effectively.

Also, with clean pulls, AOE mez really isn't necessary. What does everybody on Red do about it?

4. The Thunder Strike line of interrupt nukes is highly underrated and a very powerful tool at all levels. It is even MORE powerful proportionate to total mob HP in old-world zones, and even in Kunark Draught of Jiva makes very short work of Shaman and Wizard mobs in Seb. Coupled with 2 stuns in your spellbar you are valuable ~and doing something that nobody else does/has the resources to do~

5. Wizard has excellent resist gear, and contrary to popular belief it is very useful in dungeons. Wizard can pull caster mobs very well and generate enough agro to park them wherever they want in camp without the melee puller having to worry about catching multiple spells on a pull. Stun and LOS Rooting is a perfectly effective way of splitting many stupid caster splits, and with levels and resists you don't have much to worry about.

6. Evacs were designed for dungeons. We sit in our own filth for hours a day criticizing the flaws of the geniuses that created Everquest 15 years after the fact, but anyone arguing this fact must have access to hallucinogens the likes of which I would be interested in procuring myself.

Everybody who joins this tired ass discussion and contributes with only vitriol is assuming that anywhere you travel to in Norrath there will always be the magic combination of classes that will cover the abilities of the Wizard -without- having to wait around for 2 hours to assemble this dream team.

Let me ask you this - - when is the last time you grouped with somebody that can snare? When is the last time you grouped with somebody that has a DD stun that even used it? (Clerics, im pointing my finger at you - in fact they never cast root either - - ) When is the last time you grouped with -anybody- that casted a single CC spell other than the Enchanter?

Its easy to jockey spreadsheets and imagine a world where all classes are available to group with at all times, dealing damage with the absolute best items in the game. In reality this really isn't the case.

Once-upon-a-time Chardok AOE wasn't a steady RMT money machine like it is today. Once-upon-a-time for a long time Chardok AOE was -very- irregular. How in the world did Wizards hit level 60 back then? Especially when a very active forum contributor even admitted that quadding Kelethin guards at 54 gets barely 1% xp per pull?

The only other option past Ravishing Drolvargs outside KC (which loses steam around 54) is TD Raptors (dangerous and not worth the hassle if you don't have an Epic Cleric Alt parked there, which many of us at this point take for granted 4 years into Kunark) Either that or grouping.

When I was getting my levels in a guild that was already all 60s I had no help getting XP. I was well aware of the fact that posting up /LFG will never get me a group. What did I do instead? Sat at Seb entrance, invited any old scrub sitting there with their thumb up their ass LFG, and make groups of 4 or 5 work ~just to move the god damn XP bar~ Say what you will about Wizard from behind your excel spreadsheet and world of constantly running Chardok AOE, but I'll tell you what - these rag-tag groups that made it down into Chef and Disco camps mid-50s with no trouble and keeping the camps broken up juuuuuuuuuuust fine and killing mobs at a juuuuuuuuuuust fine pace were possibly directly because I took the reins and made the group happen.

Knocking out nasty spells make a Druid healer perfectly fine. Enc or Necro want to charm and haste a pet? No problem, I'll make sure its stunned if it breaks (unlike Clerics) Need to CC caster mobs without an Enc mez? No fucking problem, I will agro, LOS root, and keep the roots stacked. NP

The point is, we can't all wait around for this "perfect group" that everyone talks about and never happens. Fuck, all anybody ever does is duo Monk/Shaman or PLVL these days. Rogues can't do ~a single god damn thing~ to mobs without a tank and a healer. Nobody even wants to group with a Druid, either. Or a Ranger. Just stop it.

I was/am fortunate to have great EQ friends that didn't have a problem playing with me while leveling with me. We actually had a ton of fun. Hows this for a hypothetical group mid 50s - Monk, Druid, Wizard, Necromancer (add an Enc for a 5th) How many of you have ever even played with this group composition? 0. How many of you have successfully shredded the Hole, all Seb camps, and HS with this group? 0. This is just an example of some of the odd groups I've contributed to even make such an odd class combo not only possible, but effective and ~good~ And guess what? At the end of the day we were a group of players/friends who were good enough (and impatient enough) to not want to sit around waiting for this "perfect" group instead of actually moving the fucking XP bar, which at the end of the day is ~always~ faster than sitting around waiting.

Yes, the Druid isn't much weaker than the Wizard at DPS. So what happens when you have BOTH a Druid and Wizard casting some nukes? How about someone with a Flux Staff succesfully single picking Hole mobs without training the entire city and leading the way through the zone safely, making Superior Heal and Group Regen just fine for healing?

How about when you have both a Necromancer and an Enchanter with charmed, hasted, weaponized pets who have absolutely no qualms about doing so because they know theres somebody there who will ~every single time~ make sure their charm break is stunned? How about an Enchanter who doesn't have to worry about his pet AND having to cast an AOE mez on every single hideous train pull that comes into camp because actually the Wizard is pulling, root CCing, and getting casters into camp and killed first? How about the Wizard getting up and keeping the chain pull going while the melees don't have to leave the mobs they are dealing DPS to? This in itself is a contribution to the DPS of the group without ~actually~ dealing DPS. This cannot be quantified on a spreadsheet.

This is also an example of ~a group of good players using the abilities available to them to enhance the effectiveness of their group and the other classes present and also try to have fun playing 3-4 year old content~ Wow, thats a novel concept and approach to P99, isn't it?

By the way, sitting at 50% or 70% mana is complete bullshit. In dungeons I sit around 20%-30% and play catch-up once in a while on melee mobs.

And this is really the point - EQ is a very fun game because of the dungeon design/mob behavior, not because of the limitations of a particular class. Playing the game with odd class combinations with other people is what makes the game ~fun~ and that is when you are really exploring/challenging the content. I have lots of fun on my Wizard and I got him to 60 "the old fashioned way." I learned these zones on Wizard and know them very well, despite how much Wizard "sucks."

I admit "fun" to some people is playing Battlefield 4 between Chardok AOE pulls and even associating with the jackasses that frequent that cesspool. Tomato/tomahto. BTW, are you playing EQ or Battlefield? How are those RMT bans working out for ya?

People think there's some magic difference between "raid" zones and "non-raid" zones and it affects their playstyle/mindset. Really the difference is "bosses" vs "everything else." Trash in raid zones isn't much different from dungeon mobs and they have to be snared, stunned, stopped from gating, stopped from healing, CCed, etc just the same. This talk of other classes being better than a Wizard on a Hate port is bullshit - Wizard is the only class that can drop the necessary DPS with a Sunstrike to stop a Spite Golem from gating with minimal "ohshitohshitohshit" on a portup. Also can stop Liches etc from gating, Clerics from CH, etcetc. I have been responsible single-handedly for saving many "oh shits" on Wizard. This is not much different from your contributions to a "regular" dungeon. Trash in the new planes in Velious won't be much different, either.

TL - DR : Enough spreadsheet jockeying and actually play a wizard. Then join the conversation. Whens the last time ~anybody~ even grouped with a Wizard, let alone a good one? Or a Ranger or a Druid or any of the other classes who "are more efficient at the same things" but actually not at all and you won't even group with them, either?

SeriousManApplaudingInTheather.gif

Absolutely agree 100%. I've always liked and welcomed wizards in my groups because of all you wrote.

I consider spreadsheets irrelevant, because i'm playing EverQuest, not SpreadSheet. Of course if you ONLY look at numbers on a spreadsheet and nothing else, you're going to determine that wizards are sub-par. But that would be like determining the quality of a man by the size of his dick.

I've grouped with all classes, extensively. I leveled my bard to 52, almost 53 exclusively by grouping, never swarmed a day in my life. A well-played, pro wiz contributes way more that just nuke and AFK med, i just love them.

sox7d
03-06-2015, 03:03 PM
Rofl @ Tuljin calling me out.

I leveled a wizard 1-50 in p99 classic and 51-60 when kunark was released.

I did every single wizard quest.

I use EVERY tool at my disposal, I am not one to blindly follow dogma. Hell, I'm even going take credit for pioneering and popularizing kelethin as an accepted quad spot 50+. On my ranger, I've CC'd 8-pulls in MM with 2/3rds the group alive while tanking successfully. I squeeze out extra damage with DS as a ranger, more sustainability by opening with swarmcaller, or bind sight for tricky harmonying.

I advocate unconventional groups constantly. In my 40s on my ranger in CoM, I preached that chain pulling in EJ to CoM ent with track was better exp than waiting for a CoM pull every 6 minutes. And am always looking at how I can synergize with LFG classes when I can't find a group to do things such as fear/agro kite.

I don't min-max, I've almost gotten a group featuring my ranger, 3 epic'd rogues and a shaman to execute a coup on me as a leader because I invited an iksar shadowknight because I didn't want to see him sitting on his ass LFG. (Exp was still incredibly shred, for the record.)

On my wizard 50+, I always had all my stuns up, even the lower ones to preserve mana for when only stun was necessary.

But all that being said, no matter how much I tried to utilize all my tools, every single seb/HS group I'd been in struggled in the DPS department even with charmed pets and epic'd rogues. I tried to rationalize a wizard's contribution to groups so hard just like you, but it just didn't add up. I was sick of being in slow groups and feeling the silent resentment of my party toward me while a rogue would call LFG. That's when I started number crunching and decided the intangible utility and benefits of a wizard were just not worth the trade-off in damage.

I hate min-maxing more than anything, but in a group setting wizards are just so fucking below the bar it's not worth it. It's the one hypocrisy I've accepted when it comes to this game.

Not every class needs to excel in groups.

Tuljin
03-06-2015, 03:36 PM
Didn't mean to pick on you sir - I was remiss to mention that in my wall of text :-) I had a lot of posts to quote and I picked yours lol

Coming from someone who has leveled a Wizard "the old fashioned way" (there are only a handful of us) your opinion is certainly valid and well-founded.

I just never felt bad in a group because I actually "hold it down" vs. people who play "key" classes and fuck up day in and day out in PUGs. These people don't feel bad ~at all~ they will just post up LFG the next day and find somebody else who will invite them so they can sit, CH, and watch Netflix. A lot of times you can't wait around for an Enchanter and a lot of time and "ghetto cc" moves the bar just fine. You can't always wait around for a Cleric either who effectively is there to bail out mistakes that shouldn't be happening with rez. The vast majority of this server won't venture -anywhere- without a Cleric and its just annoying at this point.

A lot of people never factor in nub mistakes that kill key group members and bring the XP bar to a grinding halt. How about when these mistakes happen repeatedly? What is the group DPS/XP bar movement at that point? Do the seconds used in calculating DPS all of a sudden stop when the Enc died because nobody agroed his broken charm and the rest of the group dies because he was the only person CCing and the Cleric gated out cause things got even remotely dicey? How about those 900-1800+ "seconds?" Do they not count? Can that lost time even be made up in a group of Paladin, 4 rogues, and a Cleric vs any other group moving the bar for the entirety of that duration?

How about that for hypothetical? That is a FAR more common scenario than a Wiz, Dru, or Ranger posted up LFG. Why don't we calculate that into DPS?

koros
03-06-2015, 03:36 PM
Rofl @ Tuljin calling me out.

I leveled a wizard 1-50 in p99 classic and 51-60 when kunark was released.

I did every single wizard quest.

I use EVERY tool at my disposal, I am not one to blindly follow dogma. Hell, I'm even going take credit for pioneering and popularizing kelethin as an accepted quad spot 50+. On my ranger, I've CC'd 8-pulls in MM with 2/3rds the group alive while tanking successfully. I squeeze out extra damage with DS as a ranger, more sustainability by opening with swarmcaller, or bind sight for tricky harmonying.

I advocate unconventional groups constantly. In my 40s on my ranger in CoM, I preached that chain pulling in EJ to CoM ent with track was better exp than waiting for a CoM pull every 6 minutes. And am always looking at how I can synergize with LFG classes when I can't find a group to do things such as fear/agro kite.

I don't min-max, I've almost gotten a group featuring my ranger, 3 epic'd rogues and a shaman to execute a coup on me as a leader because I invited an iksar shadowknight because I didn't want to see him sitting on his ass LFG. (Exp was still incredibly shred, for the record.)

On my wizard 50+, I always had all my stuns up, even the lower ones to preserve mana for when only stun was necessary.

But all that being said, no matter how much I tried to utilize all my tools, every single seb/HS group I'd been in struggled in the DPS department even with charmed pets and epic'd rogues. I tried to rationalize a wizard's contribution to groups so hard just like you, but it just didn't add up. I was sick of being in slow groups and feeling the silent resentment of my party toward me while a rogue would call LFG. That's when I started number crunching and decided the intangible utility and benefits of a wizard were just not worth the trade-off in damage.

I hate min-maxing more than anything, but in a group setting wizards are just so fucking below the bar it's not worth it. It's the one hypocrisy I've accepted when it comes to this game.

Not every class needs to excel in groups.

This is true. You'd be better off inviting a non-tanking paladin for all that wizard utility (minus evac) plus better dps and some heals.

Xiki101
03-06-2015, 03:52 PM
This wizard love hurts :(

Tuljin
03-06-2015, 03:54 PM
This is true. You'd be better off inviting a non-tanking paladin for all that wizard utility (minus evac) plus better dps and some heals.

Again, go invite one of the many post-55 Paladins that are currently LFG.

Funny my highest lvl alt is a Paladin, isn't it? And how about a -tanking- Paladin that also provides all that utility? :-)

sox7d
03-06-2015, 04:01 PM
This wizard love hurts :(

Hero of raid DPS and chardok. Take pride in that.

Jaxon
03-06-2015, 04:01 PM
Wizards contribute pretty much nothing to a group. You are literally one of the worst classes at making stuff die and nothing special in the keeping your group from dying department either.

You have the DPS of a shadowknight pet, stuns that break mez, a snare that costs 5 times as much as a druid's and an aggro clicky that the cleric wishes you would stop using because he's tired of healing you. The best wizard I ever grouped with bound outside the dungeon and would leave to port rogue, cleric, monk and enchanter replacements so we could keep the exp flowing.

There's no need to be defensive or feel ashamed about sucking in groups, it's just not what you're good at. Level to 60, get your resist gear and nuke those dragons with pride.

koros
03-06-2015, 04:15 PM
Again, go invite one of the many post-55 Paladins that are currently LFG.

Funny my highest lvl alt is a Paladin, isn't it? And how about a -tanking- Paladin that also provides all that utility? :-)

My main is a ranger. Don't think I don't feel your plight. Mana regen didn't scale very well with mob hp when they designed eq. All classes need to prevent your group from dying (tank, healer, CC), make mobs die (dps), or help others be better at their job to be useful in a group (buffers). Lucky enchanters get all 3. Wizards get .5 (some combination of preventing death from stuns/evac/root cc and very mediocre dps).

I'd never not invite a wizard, but design unfortunately makes nuking pretty shitty at higher levels in EQ when you're trying to kill a constant stream of high hp mobs.

sox7d
03-06-2015, 04:42 PM
>Take clarity from chanters
>Give to wizards

OP class brought on par
UP class brought on par

All they had to do.

Redtrader
03-06-2015, 04:53 PM
Wizards are pretty good, a nuke will generally do about 50% of a mobs hp

Swish
03-06-2015, 05:12 PM
give a wiz a try on red <3

Tuljin
03-06-2015, 05:17 PM
give a wiz a try on red <3

MY PRECIOUS PIXELS NOOOOOOOOO

EQ PVP SUX, IT WAS DESIGNED FOR PVE

THE RED COMMUNITY IS TOXIC

lol what did I miss?

SCB
03-07-2015, 12:15 AM
0 content in this game is difficult enough to warrant not inviting whatever class is available in whatever gear they happen to have on.

I've seen an underleveled warrior tank Sebilis bar/chef in full crafted with a shaman healer (without torpor) on this server. This game is not hard. Period. Have fun, /ignore anyone who's an idiot, and enjoy the beauty that is classic EQ.

Dezik
03-07-2015, 04:20 AM
These forums need a like button.. The poster above would get a bunch

Wwoe
03-07-2015, 05:33 AM
I'd take a wizard over a Hybrid any day. As long as they know HOW to play a wizard in a group. If they mob flees at 18%, nuke them at 60% and save the group some heals. Learn which spell to cast on certain mobs, you have magic, cold, and fire to choose from. A resist means more down time. Always have some mana to spare incase shit hits the fan and you need to nuke down a trouble making mob or evac. Have a stun ready if you are in a zone where there are priest type mobs. And if the group pulls an easy mob, just let your melee melt it down and save for the mob that would other wise cause your group more down time. It has nothing to do with dmg per mana, its burst dmg. Your there to keep the flow of the group going. Not to be a dps god. Learn your resists. Learn your agro. Learn your CLASS!