Advice on strategy for a Wizard

[Expediency]

Wizard is the most discriminated against class on p99. Their damage cant compare to melee because of how many cheap weapons are on the market.

If you want to play a wizard, here are two pieces of advice:

1. Roll an alt of a class people want for groups, like cleric/war/monk/rogue/ench/shaman/bard so that when you cant find a group on the wiz, you have a backup.

2. Drop the twink items people gave you and join the guild <auld lang syne>. This guild does not use any twink items so, relatively speaking, you will be much stronger compared to your level 20 melee peers than you would be if they had an 80pp CoM weapon. If ALS is not for you, join any other leveling guild. People in your guild (whichever you join) are also much less likely to discriminate against you than random alts who are grinding their 4th char.

[skarlorn]

Honestly, I think wizards are more accepted than ever on p99. Odds are you are inclined towards soloing anyway, but if you play your class well and have a good attitude, you'll end up making friends in your level range who will always group with you - and that's the best strategy for anyone, even a group dependent rogue, war, cleric...

While having a grouper alt is a good idea, I highly encourage you to continue on the path you're called to. If you get to the end game and raid, your wizard may end up Legend status like a friend of mine who is capable of soloing stuff that only necros are capable of.

If you don't, you'll have a toon you love that can port yourself and your friends, and has decent outdoor solo potential.

Don't let the haters get you down. Use your roots and snares and backup cc, use your stun to stop those pesky casters, and most of all - be ready with evac!

[Ravager]

Get to level 29. Get your 3 group ports. 2 of them will take you near popular grouping dungeons.

Step 1) /who all cleric/warrior/enchanter/rogue
Step 2) /tell cleric/warrior/enchanter/rogue "MM/Paw group?"
Step 3) Collect your group.
Step 4) XP

It takes more effort that sitting around waiting with /LFG up, but it's also way faster the majority of the time.

[Kiithsa]

Don't let the haters get you down. Use your roots and snares and backup cc, use your stun to stop those pesky casters, and most of all - be ready with evac!

Really good advice here, wizards have more utility than most people realize. There are so many classes that can out-DPS wizards so you need to use your Root/Snare CC and stuns to show groups that you are still effective. You can really shine in dungeons with lots of casters that heal and gate, wizards get multiple stun spells and can manage casters really well. Evac is also very handy in case one does happen to gate on you. Basically if you rely solely on nukes, other classes will outperform you. So mix it up a little.

Kiithsa
60 Wizard

[Troxx]

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

Don't let the haters get you down. Use your roots and snares and backup cc, use your stun to stop those pesky casters, and most of all - be ready with evac!

It's not about 'being a hater' - it's just math. Wizard damage potential is very strictly limited by mana regen bottlenecks in classic. At 60 without clarity, never missing a med tick, and using their most efficient nuke this equates to 15-16 sustained dps potential assuming you never have the opportunity to med beyond full. That's less than bard melee dps or shaman pet dps. It's less than a third of necro pet dps and a quarter of mage pet dps. With c2, bard song, and POTG ... even factoring in specialization you're still under 40dps sustained at level 60. At lower levels where nuke efficiency is significantly lower ... think 3-5 sustained dps at level 25 assuming no resists.

That's just math - and most people who play p99 understand that math.

Wizards are a niche class who's benefits are well known:
-burst is great for raids
-ports for self friends
-quad nukes for soloing
-only porting class to hate/sky
-evac (only 1 other class can do this)

Stuns and cc are shared with numerous other classes.

I just want him to know what he's getting into. Unless with friends he will have a hard time finding groups because a group would be better off adding literally any other class in most situations ... or just leaving that spot empty.

That's not hating, that's just the truth.

[skarlorn]

ya so you will definitely encounter lame people like that, but you will also encounter fun loving sociable adventurers for whom the game is more than just "maths"

send me a tell on any toon you see me on if you want to adventure :P

[Kuch7]

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

I just want him to know what he's getting into. Unless with friends he will have a hard time finding groups because a group would be better off adding literally any other class in most situations ... or just leaving that spot empty.

Most people don't have a calculator and a damage table set up by their desk. They might be better off, the real question is if they care or not. 99% of the time, groups aren't playing for efficiency; they're playing for fun. People usually don't care about efficiency to the point of class exclusion until higher levels (46+), and even then Wizards tend to be a welcome addition due to their ports and evacs. You're giving him an unrealistic perception of how the vast majority of EQ players operate.

Whenever I had a desire to join a group, I never had a problem finding one. This is especially true with the Wizard raiding scene, which is both much more fun and much more important than mid-level grouping. Find a good guild and you'll be fine. Like I said before, raids need Wizards more than they know.

[Lhancelot]

Most important thing for any lowbie wizard to do is build a solid reputation as a non-AFKing douchebag which is the stigma the class carries.

If the wizard has any personality, that goes a long way too. Just being a fun groupie will make people more inclined to invite you as a wizard.

The technical aspects that can endear you to a group as a wizard is:

1. Know you have more than just nuke spells. Use roots to help tanks hold aggro better or just for CC purposes if you need to root/park mobs since you have bad CC or no CC in the group.

2. Use DS if it proves to be more efficient damage over the course of your fights.

3. Don't nuke the mob when it's at 70%, this only makes killing the mob harder because you will yank aggro off the tank, and have the mob running all over the place chasing you meaning the melee in group miss hits on the mob. Nuke to finish mobs off.

I only met 1 wizard who did all of these things, and he was able to find groups in KC np at 50+. He also organized his own groups, so that helped.