My wizard just got his Temp Flux staff, what next?
 

Heard this was one of the most important tools that a wizard will ever receive so I'm wondering how I'm meant to use this to its max potential. Do I macro my spells to use it before each casting? Do I just make a separate hotkey for its inventory slot and get used to clicking it in rapid succession with my spells? Just wondering what the best way to go about it is.

On a side note too, I'm also wondering about the Solist's Icy Wand. My wizard got one early on as well and around the time he could use it, it was pretty valuable. I'm 25 now though and I don't use it as much, though it has helped in some cases where I ran OOM and needed to finish off a mob. Should I be continuing to equip it or when would be a good time to "graduate" out of it with a normal mainhand item? Since it has to be equipped to be activated. Is there a less annoying way to swap to it when it is needed, other than opening my inventory, opening the bag it's sitting in, and manually equipping it before casting it?

I think some UI will let you hotbar bag slots, which would make switching easier.

I wouldn’t use the flux staff with every cast - it is high aggro so a bad habit to get into for when you join a group.

25-29 ... are there any scarabs good for quadding at this level? They tun slow, so don’t need snare (try to wear sow though).

If not, I’d suggest doing a but of grouping in unrest or mm. Mm is better as it gives you the space to CC.

If you don't have jboots, sell the wand I'd say. It's occasionally gonna save you some money but most of the time not.

As for content to do next. Did you do staff of the wheel? There's the Mystic Cloak and if you wish the Acumen Mask and such quests.

But basically, blast to 46+ and join a guild. Get the sky neck so you can port cheap to sky.

As for hotkey, yes I dragged the staff to a hotkey slot and bound it.

got them jboots yet?

That's what I was debating. It would be extra aggro in groups, but as I've soloed all the way to 25 so far I was wondering if it would be an issue. I have a plan to solo to 26 on Crag Spiders, and then move on to sisters in OOT to get to 29. But yup it just seems like the issue is unavoidable and i'll just have to get used to using it on a 2nd hotkey hehe.

I was more talking about what to do with the temp flux staff, but yep I have goals on the horizon for my wizard. Acumen Mask is definitely one, and Staff of the Wheel later. I'm evil so no Mystic Cloak. This is my main though and I definitely want to take it to the top. :)

Negative, and that is another thing I'm debating too. I know how important those are and I really do want to get some as quick as possible. Do I stop what I'm doing with my wizard and take my mage to Rivervale, and don't stop ravaging it until I have enough cash to buy a jboots MQ? Or do I tough it out to 29 and try to get them myself by porting to SRo every hour?

Truth be told I've used my mage quite a bit just to play a wizard, by farming him gear and getting him Temp Flux staff pieces when I couldn't count on other people to help me. I can't tell if this is really sad and wrong, or not. I wish I had friends to help with this sort of thing.

How evil? I got one on my DE. Just took a potion and a druid friend.

Human Wizard of Innoruuk. I don't want to trash my Dead faction though. Got a loam cloak so I'm not too worried about getting one of those.

I always just kept my Flux staff in an open inventory slot when quadding and hotkeyed it. You don't have to equip it like you do the Solist wand, you can click the effect from your inventory slot. And speaking of the Solist wand, I'd say it's worth holding on to unless you need to sell it to help fund your JBoots. I can recall an instance quadding Seafuries and being completely OOM after an unlucky string of resists and having to use that little Solist wand to finish one off.

You will definitely want to get JBoots as soon as you can so you can start quadding. But Wizard quadding doesn't really take off until level 34, when you get Circle of Force pillar nuke and can use it in conjunction with your level 29 Bonds of Force AOE snare, so you have some time. You can technically quad before then if you have JBoots/SoW and your Flux staff but it's extremely risky and requires very good timing and dexterity, and realistically heavy/moderate twinking, so I wouldn't recommend it. Just root/nuke single targets until then and try to save up as much plat as you can for the JBoots. And definitely nothing wrong with funding your Wizard with some Mage farming. That's what Mages are for.

Once you're 34+ and have your JBoots, you're pretty much set. With some very modest INT and mana gear you can easily solo to 60 by quadding, which is by far your best way of getting XP once you learn to do it safely and efficiently. There is pretty much no reason a Wizard should ever be grouping for XP post-34. You don't contribute much to the group and you'd get much better XP solo anyway. It's a natural and happy divorce. At 60 you will have your pick of guilds because raiding Wizards are always in demand and there's never enough to go around these days.

Also remember to always be levitating. A Wizard's feet should never touch the ground.

Aye that's what I'm doing now. Got the temp flux staff in my inventory and clicking from there on a separate hotkey. It's the first time actually using something like that though so I was mostly just wondering if there were macros or something that would streamline the process.

I don't see a reason to not hold onto the wand for that sort of thing, at least until Velious hits and clicky robes come into play. Was mostly wondering how useful it would be later on and if there was a better way to handle that as well. Kind of annoying to pull it out of my bags each time.

I did give quadding a try recently with the scythe beetles in NK. Just Pillar of Fire. No SoW or anything like that. It was fun but I don't think it will be possible now without those tools. As far as I know there are no beetle style mobs available beyond those. Would love to get back into it eventually though.

The mage I have was something I did intend on maining one day. I was just afraid of being able to solo later. Was also concerned about the difficulty of my epic and the demand by raids. How many mod rod vendors does a raid really need for instance? That is why I swapped to wizard with the full intent of maining that, but it was just a bit concerning how much I was still playing the mage despite that decision. A good wizard should have been able to get their own temp flux staff and JBoots, right? If I didn't have the mage I'd be screwed there.

My plan is to do Crag spiders till 26, then Sisters in OOT till 29, at which point I can swap to the dwarves on that same island. A nice, clear, relaxing, and easily AFKable path. After that if I still don't have the JBoots I might just stay on the mage until I get it. My only concern with doing the MQ route is how easily it might go wrong I suppose.

Is that true? I'm killing crag spiders right now and don't really feel like levitate is too necessary atm. xD

At 25th level you should be camping 1 of the 2 treants in South Karana. They cast, have 600-700 hps an drop lots of coin. You will make lots of money, great xp, the money will let you buy Jboots MQ if you stay there till mid 30's. At 29 you can start to take both Treants with your 29th fire spell. You can stay here till 39 an make hella cash, my wizard had over 10k by the time I hit 39th level an that was after I bought 6k Jboots MQ. Make sure you have weight reduction bags, Treants drop heavy staves that sell for like 15pp a piece. Start practicing Quadding, the staff is the perfect pulling tool for that. You can quad beetles in North Karana now because they move slow enough you can out run them without Jboots, but you need to get the research spell pillar of fire. Make sure you use pillars an column spells for quadding, stay away from the Alkabor line spells. After Treants and you have jboots you can start quadding West Karana Guards, 2 towers near qeynos hills each with 2 guards, usually never camped. You will need research spells cirlce of force for that. When your mana pool gets big enough you can take the East Karana guards, they will take you to 49th level quadding. Guard quads will give you 4-7% exp a quad all the way to 49. After that Spirocs in TD will take you to 51, exp will only be 3-4% but still decent. Then raptor islands in TD till 60, but the exp drops again 1-3%. Its supposed to be 5-8% till 57th level but P99 gimped the xp for some reason.