If you go to the source material of the source material (Everquest->Dungeons and Dragons-> Lord of the Rings) you'll see that the role of wizards is forming groups.

The gap between wizard and mage is supposed to be closer.

* Sword of Runes shouldn't have a proc yet
* Mage pets should not be dual wielding or wielding weapons at all for that matter
* Mage pets should have only just recently gotten spells, and the Earth pet isn't supposed to get root until October 1999

If this were the case, wizards would be closer to mages in utility, with wiz having a snare once they get BoF and the mages still lacking a root.

Hopefully in place for the next iteration of Green.

where is future patch stuff listed? need to know what to look out for lol

Wizards legitimately are very bad sustained DPS. An XP group wants nonstop pulling and killing of merbs, and wizards suck at that. There are roles they can perform, but nothing that can't be done a lot better. Is a wizard better CC than a paladin? I dunno... they have slightly better root but they can't take a hit, and that paladin at least has a chance to lull first and still tanks decently as well. Obviously an enchanter is a better CC and the best DPS in the game. Wizard nukes better than druid/mage, but wizards' biggest advantage there is in cast time, and in an XP group that doesn't matter cus you aren't trying to empty your mana bar, and you'd draw aggro if you did. Blasting out a mana bar as a wizard is only for raid mobs that the tank has a full mallet into.

Yeah, terrible group class. I say this as a guy that leveled 2 wizards on blue purely for raiding purposes... cus that's what they're for.

As a wizard grouping can be rough. Are you part of or have you considered joining a guild? Wizards are fairly desirable to guilds. Guild chat can also be a good place to find and look for a group, and as a Wizard traveling to groups is less of a concern.

If u arent active for every mob you arent playing a wiz right, there are these nice spells called stuns that you should be throwing out, you arent just there to press your highest lvl nuke, if that is all you are doing then you arent a very good wiz, a 50 wiz without IC still nukes for over 784 dd a pop, even 1 nuke is nothing to laugh about, by the time most other dps get that amount you already should have regened most if not all the mana u just blew, ppl that diss wiz dont actually know how a wiz works, get a good wiz in a group and watch the exp per hour go up

Not until Rend is added in July 1999.

Can we get some punctuation??

If you’re talking about clearing hordes of trash in Fear or Hate or ToV, then yes, wizards are low DPS. But if you’re talking about burning down a 32k hp Kunark raid mob with a nasty AE, it’s helpful to have several wizards to make the fight shorter. Once you have a certain number of wizards, if they all use up a full mana bar, that’s a ton of damage, delivered faster than other classes can do it.

Don't group on a Wiz for XP, ever. You're just screwing everyone over, including yourself. Quadding is best, but even single target root-nuking is better. You have the advantage on a Wiz of making very fast kills. So most of your "XP time" is actually medding, during which you can do other things. It's a much more efficient use of your time than being the worst member of every group you join.

That being said, Wiz is one of the best classes for raid-focused players. This holds true all the way through Velious. If you enjoy raiding and contributing to a guild's progress (like other raid-focused classes like Warrior, Cleric, Bard, Rogue) but like a more independent playstyle and don't want a lot of in-game responsibility, Wiz is the perfect class. Pretty much no guild ever says, "We have too many Wizards on the roster."