Wizards! Do you regret it?

[Hithrohir]

The problem is that the content isn't designed to cater to what a wizard offers. If huge burst damage was widely useful, it'd be different. There's very rarely a need to burn a mob down in a hurry, especially as mob hp grows to the point where you pretty much can't. Towards the end of Kunark, and certainly in Velious, it gets to the point where the mobs simply die faster if you apply the sustained DPS of a melee class throughout the entire fight. If it had been so that wizards, despite having a lower general DPS, were frequently needed to burn down mobs during hypothetical dangerous phases or whatever, they might serve a purpose. It just isn't really there, and for the vast majority of the game's content, a wizard is resigned to sitting around nuking each mob once and doing horrible DPS with no situations coming up where the ability to burn shit down becomes valuable.

The math has already been done in this thread. While rudimentary, it's pretty straight-forward - consider the damage to mana ratio, the time it takes to get that amount of mana back, and you have a general DPS figure. Then consider that a wizard contributes absolutely nothing else during combat and you have proof that the class is simply weak. Their ports are a tertiary convenience, their evacs are only needed if things don't go right (which they usually do with this playerbase, most everyone being hardcore EQ veterans who know their shit) and the ability to interrupt casters is neither rare nor particularly critical in a group setting. Plus it costs DPS for the wizard, unlike other classes.

I think the simple fact that magician nukes are only 10% worse than a wizard's while their pet approaches the DPS of an additional melee class is enough to discount wizard as a viable DPS role. And even magicians are considered sub-par. Lures are hugely mana-inefficient and are used only on the occasional raid target that can't be nuked with normal spells, and while wizards do become a bit less futile on raids, they're still far from necessary and often enough out-performed by melee anyway.

Most of this boils down to that lapse in class design vs. content design, and of course the inexcusably bad caster itemization of early Everquest. A naked wizard does the same DPS as a raid-geared one, and while the latter can do it for longer, the mana pool dilemma comes into effect on anything but boss mobs where you always start at FM. Uptime was discussed in a previous post, and anyone who knows their shit knows that a large mana pool is worthless when you never get to reach FM, and is equally worthless if the content is so easy that you frequently do. It only matters in those situations where you get to fill that huge mana pool up before using it and can then use the whole thing. Without a way of doing this on demand like you can in modern games, it becomes almost entirely worthless, and thus caster itemization is broken.

[Swish]

Loved my wizard on live around Velious and onwards, didn't have a problem getting groups and found myself in demand a lot of the time.

Made a wizard here, pretty much went solo til about 14-15 then went to Oasis... where I spent hours sometimes LFG. Not prepared for the rejection, and its strange how wizards are considered the lowest of the low on P99.

Obviously, I quit playing him. Sad really.

[Ulivar]

MM all this talk of MELEEQUEST is making me a sad panda

[Eccezan]

loved it on live, lovin it here and couldnt imagine playing another class as my main...love to have the spells fixed and harvest added tho [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Rod of Annihilation (if you can get your hands on one) w/ Tola Robe and Shaman buffs sure help dps in groups as well! Tons of fun

[Chewboy]

Made my wizard, loved him up until his 40's then I could never find a group and all quadding spots were taken. Took me over a month to get to lvl 50 from 49. Then I thought okay once i hit 51 things will be better! NOPE. The mobs in kunark required to get past 51 have crazy fucking HP and the zones are a bitch to quad in. Bottom line. If you are creating a wizard be prepared to spend 6+ hours LFG and then when you do find a group 9 times out of ten the dps is shit because you're a wizard and not any other class.

Top Ten Things I wish I knew when I made my wizard...

1. Even at lvl 50 if you want to do any quadding you have to use your lvl 34 aoe spell because it is the most mana efficient all other AoEs are either retarded dmg/mana ratio or they are rain damage which simply doesn't cut it.

2. Wizard snare sucks ass. On the plus side its an AoE snare which is cool, on the downside it disappears several times during a fight. Its necessary to resnare 3 to 5 times during a quad.

3. Post 40 You can never find a group and if you do xp is slower than shit because you're losing the grp DPS.

4. Looks like you get a lot of spells on the spell list right? WRONG dmg/mana ratio is messed up for 80 percent of them, be prepared to use one spell for everything. I'm convinced as a wizard you could prolly spend under 150p for all your spells until 50 if you ditch the ones that you'll never use.

5. At level 50, if you get more than 2 light blue mobs on you in Uguk you are fucked if you can't evac.

6. You will never be able to camp a single item that is in a dungeon. You need a wide open space to do any sort of soloing at all.

7. Porting yourself is cool. Porting other people isn't. "Sorry man, that's all I have on me." Most of the time they want to dick you with a donation of 5 plat. Hardly worth your time. If you dont play /anon or /roleplay be prepared for tells every three seconds asking for you to go way out of your way for a 5 plat port.

8. Single Target Instant Kill at 60!!?!?? Cool right!? Wrong, the mob has to be below lvl 52 and when you use it you get no xp and the corpse disintegrates upon kill, so there is no loot either. So even at 60 the one spell that could enable you to camp items in dungeons dicks you once again.

9. Roots are nice and at 51 you get one that lasts a whole year, lotta good that is for soloing when you nuke it immediately breaks no matter what.

10. Want to port over to EJ or Skyfire? Not only do you have to be in kunark but you have to be in a kunark dungeon to do it. That's right, thats a port in to DL, then a run all the way across the hills to karnor's to port to EJ or Skyfire. Oh and when you port into Skyfire, Spread those ass cheeks wide as hell because those sperm with teeth are waiting for ya.

/bow

[Friday]

KSing my raid force and linking false loot is pretty fun.

[WizardEQ]

Honestly, if you can't find a group just form one yourself. With /lfg, about half the time I get a tell asking me to join a group. If I don't find one, I just start a group. Pretty easy when you can search all /lfg in your level range. I leveled up in Oasis in mainly the Orc HW group, either joining or forming. In Guk I can find a group or just form one, it's been so dead there lately there.

Caveat: I formed a group in Guk last night that didn't go well for anyone, and I apologize. I had WAY too many RL interruptions, wife coming home, picking up kid from school, etc. But with all this I managed to get an SK from Nek who had never been to Guk before, a cleric, and enchanter. All in all, I couldn't stay that long but hopefully the group got some decent exp overall.

BUT the night before last, I got 2 levels in an amazing group that stayed full with replacement players. So it all balances out nicely. At this point in my life, I'm really in it to relax and have fun. It's merely a distraction from RL for a few hours a day.

XAX

[mimixownzall]

What ruins wizards are the ones who get in a group and cast once every 3 mobs. I see this a lot. Once it was in a group with an SK as tank and a bard and chanter, so aggro and mana wasn't an issue.

[Skope]

Originally Posted by mimixownzall [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

What ruins wizards are the ones who get in a group and cast once every 3 mobs. I see this a lot. Once it was in a group with an SK as tank and a bard and chanter, so aggro and mana wasn't an issue.

It can still be an issue, depending on what the wizzy is casting and how fast the mobs are dropping.

Oddly enough, your stuns may be more beneficial in a group setting than your sunstrike/draught line of nukes. If it takes 20 seconds to drop a mob, having it stunned for nearly half of that time is better than putting out 1k damage. It eases up on the heals and mana/aggro of your other group members significantly.

Yes, wizards are gimped. They solo the worst of all int casters and offer the least to a group. It's hard to get groups, it's rough quadding/soloing to 60. In a raid setting, though, they're a critical asset.

[Kimm Barely]

Did the first time on live. Looking back, it was truly tedious until the early 30s. Quad kiting saved the experience for me. Decided to go druid this time and love it much better. I am pretty casual so the class works for me.