I want to level in groups as a Wizard

[Foxplay]

Good luck

[beargryllz]

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

You bring 5 things to groups in order of usefulness in XP.
CC+snare
Interrupts
High Aggro
Eye pulls+bind sight tracking around+general awareness
Evac.

Damage is not a wizard's job, you're literally the worst class in the game at it, a meleeing cleric is more DPS at all levels. So learn to be real good at the others with your rather OP click aggro stick, roots, stuns etc.

Of those things you bring to the group, other classes bring the equivelant and more. So, make friends, and be solid at making your presence useful.

10/10 CAPITAL TROLL

[Raev]

I would argue that a Wizard's best grouping ability is the simple port. You can send tells and form up a group of LFGs from wherever and take them to an out of the way zone like Droga or Splitpaw. With 1700 players on at peak times getting out of the popular zones is critical. Unfortunately a) people are sheep and don't like leaving their comfort zones b) adding a Wizard to the group slows things down substantially c) there aren't that many empty 50+ xp zones.

Wizards are simply weak in Velious (with the exception of Bane encounters). As Motec points out, they are supposed to be a DPS class, and yet they do half as much sustained damage as a Paladin. Really, all of the nuking classes are weak in Velious, and this began to turn around in Luclin with huge mana regen (Spiritual Purity, AA KEI lasting for hours, more/easier FT, horses), nuke criticals, focus items, and eventually more burst fights in Planes of Power. The lack of caster itemization makes things even worse; every 50+ wizard must compete with an epic rogue or monk. The more you try to play around nukes in Velious Era the worse you will be; hence Motec's recommendation to use the stuns and crowd control spells, which is probably correct but takes you to the level of the worst enchanter ever.

Note: 90% of this is fixed if you can acquire a Xygoz/Velketor clicky robe. But as a new player you don't have that option.

[AegnorP99]

I think Raev explained it pretty well. Wizard itemization is just atrocious in this era. Melee toons can just upgrade weapons or worn haste and increase their dps commensurately. Wizards can just increase total mana. This is great for quadding and for burning down raid mobs, but it doesn't do a dang thing for casual group encounters. A good clicky robe will absolutely turn this around and make you a perfectly viable group member, but good luck obtaining one before level 60 (and good luck getting invites even with a robe - people don't totally understand the difference it makes).

Basically, wizard is the probably single worst class to roll if you want to group for exp. I don't recommend the class to anyone who isn't interested in raiding, which is where wizards shine. I can think of a dozen minor tweaks that would make wizards viable in the grouping game, but alas, P99 isn't the place for "improvements" over classic EQ.

[Crede]

Wizard grouping is fine, beware of all the min maxers and trolls on the forums about stuff like this.

If you must group as a wizard, don’t afk all the time giving other good wizards a bad rep, make friends and form groups when you can, utilize the diff spell lines(not just nukes), and try to keep PoTG up as much as possible(seriously, it’s worth it).

I particularly had a blast in the 50s grouping and pairing my rain spells with Tash/Malo. With the right debuffs and circumstances doing nearly 2k dmg for <400 mana was a glorious feeling.

[Troxx]

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

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For groups it’s actually true most of the time. Wizards can explode things quickly but the amount of down time required to meditate puts them dead last. Sustained over time in a group that can keep a mob in camp? You can only put out damage as fast as you can meditate the mana back. Level 60 Sunstrike with evocation spec is 4 dmg per mana return.

Sustained at 60 with meditate only: 14 dps
With c2: 21.23 dps
With c2 and potg: 25dps
With c2 potg and 55 bard song: 33.3 dps

Compare to a dedicated dps Druid? Less efficient nuking but thorns is hugely efficient damage per mana. Druid will sustain (not burst) higher than wizards at all levels of play.

Compared to mage/necro? Their summon pets alone will sustain more damage than a fully buffed wizard. Mage in particular is monster sustained dps.

Wizards are a one trick pony that can do some side jobs that many other classes can also do (and do better).

I don’t mind grouping with wizards but they are not a good group dps class. They’re unfortunately the worst.

[Crede]

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

For groups it’s actually true most of the time. Wizards can explode things quickly but the amount of down time required to meditate puts them dead last. Sustained over time in a group that can keep a mob in camp? You can only put out damage as fast as you can meditate the mana back. Level 60 Sunstrike with evocation spec is 4 dmg per mana return.

Sustained at 60 with meditate only: 14 dps
With c2: 21.23 dps
With c2 and potg: 25dps
With c2 potg and 55 bard song: 33.3 dps

Compare to a dedicated dps Druid? Less efficient nuking but thorns is hugely efficient damage per mana. Druid will sustain (not burst) higher than wizards at all levels of play.

Compared to mage/necro? Their summon pets alone will sustain more damage than a fully buffed wizard. Mage in particular is monster sustained dps.

Wizards are a one trick pony that can do some side jobs that many other classes can also do (and do better).

I don’t mind grouping with wizards but they are not a good group dps class. They’re unfortunately the worst.

Interesting calculations, although your numbers are off because Wizards also get harvest, and you used sunstrike whereas rain spells are more efficient if you know how/when to use them, the last one with evo spec being 5.3 DPM. Are they down there with pallies as the worst dps group class? Yea pretty much but they're not nearly as garbage as people tend to say. I've saved a good amount of hole groups with evac as well.

Also, OP, if you intend to raid, then at 60 you have a viable raiding class that are key for mobilization with huge bane nukes. If you went mage for more sustained group dps, at 60 you're a coth bot in the raid scene. Plus if you do raid and get the VP robe on a wizard, you're at around 55 manaless dps! More when you throw in occasional nukes. Velks robe is a bit lower but much easier to acquire with moderate raiding.

Every class is good in their own way. Ultimately it comes down to the individual. If you don't suck and understand and know how to play your class, people will notice and welcome you in regardless.

[loramin]

Let me just attempt to sum up the entire future of this thread:

1. Some people will point out that objectively Wizards are worse in certain ways (eg. lower sustained DPS than any other "DPS class")
   
2. Some people will point out that objectively Wizards aren't that far off from other classes on things like sustained DPS, and have lots of other (objective) advantages
   
3. Because it's difficult to be objective, as EQ involves so many more factors than just sustained DPS (and because the vast majority of forum posters haven't played Wizards), way more people than in either A) or B) will go off on completely subjective assessments (mostly negative) about the class

And right there you have Wizards in a nutshell. The reality is that in every era some class has to be "the worst" objectively, because Verant was not Blizzard and they did not do a perfect job on balancing. But at the same time, any class weaknesses (real or perceived) gets amplified tenfold here in the forums, and in reality while Wizards might not be quite as good as other classes in some respects, they aren't nearly as bad as everyone makes them out to be.

Play what you want, join groups, and have fun. You will be offered less groups than other classes, but you will absolutely still be offered groups, and regardless you can absolutely make your own. Moreover if you join a good leveling guild (or a half leveling, half raiding guild like ALS is now) getting groups will be even easier.

P.S. And then someday when Blue gets custom content, quite possibly decades from now, the devs could decide to make up for this era by giving Wizards a quest to earn the Manaburn AA (just as Verant did on live ... well except the quest part), and then all of the Wizards on the server will collectively laugh at everyone else as they form Wizard-only guilds and steal all the phat lewtz on the server for themselves [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[AegnorP99]

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

Sustained at 60 with meditate only: 14 dps
With c2: 21.23 dps
With c2 and potg: 25dps
With c2 potg and 55 bard song: 33.3 dps

Thanks for crunching the numbers.

I just wanted to add to this by pointing out how these numbers improve with a good clicky robe. The more easily obtained robe from Velketor does 625 damage with a 15 second cast time. This isn't really "free damage" as you miss out on an average of 2.5 med ticks or 50 mana during your cast. Thus, the robe becomes your best nuke with a damage per mana of 625/50 or 12.5 which is more than 3x better than the dpm of Ice Spear of Solist (your best single target nuke). Factoring this in changes things quite a bit. I won't take the time to calculate your potential sustained dps for the scenarios quoted above (you'll still cast real nukes from time to time), but just know that it gets better.

[Troxx]

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

Interesting calculations, although your numbers are off because Wizards also get harvest, and you used sunstrike whereas rain spells are more efficient if you know how/when to use them, the last one with evo spec being 5.3 DPM. Are they down there with pallies as the worst dps group class? Yea pretty much but they're not nearly as garbage as people tend to say. I've saved a good amount of hole groups with evac as well.

Rain spells on p99 are beyond broken and thus ultimately useless due to terrible resistance coding.

You are correct that I didn’t factor in harvest but I also didn’t take a few things into account to include:

-my numbers assumed you get every Med tick every time (not going to happen cast time is 7 seconds)
-my numbers assumed you never get a resist (partial or full) — not going to happen
-my numbers assume you never wast dps (1600dmg nuke on a target with 1khp remaining)
-my numbers assume you never fizzle
-my numbers assume you never cast any other spell ever
-my numbers assume you’re level 60 using only the really efficient nuke

So yeah absent a clicky nuke robe the numbers I quoted are a best case scenario that will never happen. Clicky robe comes out to 41.667 dps if chain clicked and never resisted. It definitely helps a ton but still doesn’t close the gap enough unfortunately. It really is a shame that wizards are so ineffective unless hard burning a group named or kunark era low hp raid mob.

On the flip side these numbers also assume you always have mobs in camp. Every moment not spent actively fighting the wizard does accumulate potential dps when other classes aren’t actively meleeing a mob down, but this fact also holds true for wizard class prime competitor Druid and mage.