A wizard is you...

[Haledan]

So I'm getting started here on P1999 and thought I would say hello. I played a shaman named Haledan on Xev back on live during late Kunark up through Luclin, then popped in and out a few times over the years. Never reached level cap once during all my play time because I'm easily distracted by shiny things and just kind of did whatever I felt like doing and in a game like EQ which always had a huge amount of things to do this really slowed down my leveling progress.

As I return here I could use a little advice on picking a class. I've considered shaman again but decided I'd like to try something different. After trying out a few characters and leveling them a couple of times (rogue, monk, bard, and wizard) I thought I would ask what the general thoughts on wizards were here. Is this a class that is easy to start from scratch with? Will I be able to find groups that want or need me? I soloed too much with my shaman when I played on live and I think I'd like to try grouping more this time around. Will I be able to fill my spell book to a reasonable extent? It seems like it is expensive to gear up melee classes but also pretty expensive to get a hold of important spells too.

I guess I haven't ruled out bard or rogue yet but am leaning toward wizard and was wondering if there are any major reasons to not play one as a main.

Thanks!

[Castcalm]

Spellcasters are, generally speaking, easier to start out with naked than melees. Monks being the near-exception to that rule. Rogues and warriors are particularly gear-dependent and will have a struggle at the start.

That being said, wizards are one of the more difficult first-character spellcasters. They are not particularly efficient soloers until 29 when quadding becomes possible. You'll have a lot of meditating and short (but very doable) fights.

Groups do not generally seek out wizards, so you may have to be proactive and outgoing to secure yourself a spot.

Overall, wizards are tougher at the start but begin to really shine later on. Once you get into the 29-44 range, quadding provides a more efficient leveling method, and you can easily make decent coin by offering teleports. Since velious is out, you have translocates to look forward to. Wizards are very desired at the high end due to their usefulness in raids and relatively low population; they are one of the less popular spellcasters. (Druids, necros, enchanters, and shaman are the very popular ones)

[curtischoy]

Unfortunately wizards get a bad name because of the people that will get play them that get in a group and burn the first 3 mobs a group pulls and then afk until they are fom. That is being a bad wizard. If you use your mana wisely you can ghetto mez mobs by root parking them, help get a mob off the enchanter/cleric/whatever by stunning them, or you can selectively burn mobs down. I say selectively because sometimes burning a mob is appropriate and sometimes it is being a bad wizard (see above). Say you are fighting hags in unrest, they are wizards and their spells hurt, they also have low hp. As a wizard you can save the cleric valuable mana by burning them down as fast as possible so that they cannot get off nukes (You can even use your dd/stun to interrupt them while doing good damage!)

Players of all levels hate it when mobs flee at low health, this is why snare is so nice to have in a group. At lower levels people tend not to snare because you kill too quickly and then waste all of your mana on a snare. So instead of stopping them form running by someone snaring, you can stop them from running by starting a nuke late, say 50% mob health, and it might land at 25% health and then kill them right infront of the tank. People love to see that in groups and it makes your dps seem impressive. Get the timing down right and you will land your nuke for full dmg and have the mob barely be able to move when it begins to flee.

They have a lot of tools, people just need to be made aware that not all wizards are afk.

Welcome to P99 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Haledan]

Thanks for the advice so far! I tend to have pretty good situational awareness and like to be active so I think playing in a way that is just burning down the first few mobs and then afking a bit isn't a trap I would fall into. Timing nukes, rooting, stunning, these are all things that sound pretty fun to me. It took a couple of days for this to get approved so I might have another welcome post on the way ( sorry about that [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] ) but since then I've leveled my rogue and wizard both and was starting to lean a bit toward the rogue. I think because I understand low level rogue items...ie. banded, best piercer i can afford, those 5ac 55hps rings if i can afford them.

I think this thread has helped me decide on trying my wizard first. I've never leveled or twinked a wizard in any past life so other than cloth and a dagger (and those 5ac 55hps rings?) is there anything cheap I should be looking to acquire at the start? Because I have had a bit of altits going on I've managed to build up 100ish pp across various characters through questing and was going to pool it all on to the one I decided to main. I've got a dagger, and cloth, and some alligator tooth earrings and limestone rings from the Qeynos aqueducts atm because I knew where to camp them but I don't know where to camp any low level +mana gear.

Thanks again [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Raev]

You want to play an enchanter. If you play a wizard well (stun casters/charmed pets, help with CC, have that evac button ready) you can be . . . wait for it . . . mediocre in an average leveling group. And because P1999 is populated exclusively by min/maxers, you won't get groups anyway. I couldn't even get groups on my *bard*, one of the best grouping classes, because people were afraid of the hybrid penalty. Personally I find unusual class combos to be fun, but everyone wants Warrior/Monk/Rogue/Shaman/Cleric/Enchanter because they can faceroll their keyboards and still level up pretty fast.

TLDR: enchanters are a superb group class and also one where you can control the action. Wizards are for quadding/chardok to 60 and then being parked out for raid content.

[Pyrion]

You could use a druid. Nuke damage & efficiency is less, but not much so. But you will have a ton more utility and quadding is also a viable option, just like for wizards.

So you can play that druid just like a wizard if you want with only a little bit less efficiency. If you want efficiency (way more than wizard pre 29) you can just charm kill or root/rot. The only other things a wizard can do that a druid cant are translocates and stuns that also work indoors. The things a druid can do that a wizard can't are a lot: Buffing, Healing, PLing, SOW and wolf form (which also gives faction opportunities), DoTs, Charms, Tracking, foraging...

I think that wizards really need a buff. Of course that's not going to happen.

[Haledan]

Looks like the thread has looped back around to don't play wizard [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] It's cool guys I understand perfectly why wizards are bad here. I mean you can only sustain as much damage as your mana regen allows and mana regen just isn't that great.

Dinged 16 turning in my lightstones and GLS out in NK last night and managed to get a sow from a nice troll murdering some guards. Then I invised up and ran through the gorge (is this route not faster than hhp?), stopped to sell some bear pelts and bone chips in Rivervale then made my way too east commons. Picked up a couple of golden jaded bracelets and want to grab a couple of golden fire wedding rings before I head out to adventure more. I'm thinking 16-20 is probably going to slow down some for me now that I'm moving past a lot of the low level quests I know of that give good exp. Are there any quests in the 16-24 range that give decent exp on top of exp for killing the mobs? With some hps rings and the bracers I've been considering trying to aoe down wisps and turn in more lightstones but I'm not sure how well that works after 16.

[Vheran]

My main's name has always been Helfdan, so i had to look at your name a few times

[Haledan]

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

My main's name has always been Helfdan, so i had to look at your name a few times

That's pretty good...I'm pretty sure Haledan came right from SOE's name generator as I wasn't good with coming up with names. My wizard is named Wizode...yup not good with names. Level 8 Erudite bound in Qeynos currently.

Getting the 55hps rings would nearly double my hps atm and make me a lot more durable so I'll see what I can do. The stein is nice but I don't think I'll have the ability to get past the ogre faction requirement so I'll probably have to buy one. I had forgot how expensive spells can be so I've got to account for that too. Figure I'll do at least to lvl 12 in the Qeynos area and maybe up to 16 for invis if I can find groups to level with. I think I'm going to be missing the SoW of my shaman and the sneak and hide of my rogue right up until I start getting my ports.

[curtischoy]

5/55 rings are really good until high 50s when you can reasonably replace them. I do not think I have anything better on any of my characters. 110 extra hp to a low level silk wearer is amazing. I believe they are around 220-250 each. For some int http://wiki.project1999.com/Stein_of_Moggok these maybe go for around 250. Check out the quest and see if you can do that instead of buying it if you don't have the cash.

I would also save some money to buy gems that you need for reagents for your rune line of spells. This line will save your life.