What's wrong with Wizards?

[Messianic]

Wizards are kinda junky in terms of sustained DPS in group situations. They can be very effective in a tough spot where you really need to drop an add/caster/healer mob very quickly, but that requires them to sit on about 50% of their mana pool. Hence the junky sustained DPS.

In terms of travel, Druids have far better port locations overall. If Lavastorm/Feerrott ports weren't enough, they also get the important ports early on (WC for druids at 29, wizards don't get it till 39).

Gfay and Plane of Hate/Sky are the only ports that are "better" than druid ports. I really wish wizards had been given some kind of Qeynos hills port, or moved the WK wizard platform near the Qeynos Hills zoneline. That would have rocked...

As for Druids - theyre mostly "better," including built-in-sow, more efficient soloing single mobs, if you're just after a really powerful character with ports...If you want a primary character with the best ability to gather materials for tradeskills, track, etc, Druids far exceed wizards.


However, come Kunark and Velious, wizard AoE's become obscenely mana-efficient. The ratio difference between the 51+ pillar spells is far and beyond anything they had before 50. I remember quad-kiting twice before having to med in the velious era, which was absolutely crazy exp.

Expect to solo from 29ish-60 very quickly in Kunark/Velious if you know what you're doing as a wizard. But expect the grind from 1-24 to be really, really boring. At 24 you can full-speed quad pretty effectively in certain undisclosed locations [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] You can do it earlier than that, but it's just not as effective or reliable as camping quick-spawn good exp mobs, such as Osargen in HK or Saben Tucross in lfay. That is, unless you have the $$ for unlimited sow potions or MQ jboots...

[Kava]

A wizard was my main on Live from day one, to GoD. I loved playing him everyday, soloing or grouping; you just have to learn how to be useful to any given situations. Nothing wrong with dropping mobs quickly towards the middle/end of each battle to avoid aggro, and end each fight faster.

Are they more useful once Kunark comes out? Most definitely, and more deadly overall.

As for ports, some people prefer a druid port over a wizard port (and vice versa) for the odd zone ports each class gets (Druid/wizard; butcher/Gfay; Surefall/WestKarana; Lavastorm/Nektulos; Feerrott/Cazic respectively)

If YOU enjoy playing them, you can be very useful by learning the class.

Ironically, I am playing a Druid ATM because he is much more enjoyable at this stage, but my wizard is slowly levelling to get ready for Kunark and Quad Kiting hehe...

[Messianic]

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

As for ports, some people prefer a druid port over a wizard port (and vice versa) for the odd zone ports each class gets (Druid/wizard; butcher/Gfay; Surefall/WestKarana; Lavastorm/Nektulos; Feerrott/Cazic respectively)

Druids won't get surefall gate on this server at all, IIRC regarding when it was added. Regardless, the WK portal is relatively useless. The NK spires are a stone's throw away. Since the wizard can't sow others, I'd rather have an NK port with a level 50 sow than a WK port from a wizard and jboots if i'm heading to permafrost (the lvl 50 destination if i'm headed that direction).

Gfay is only a slightly better port than Steamfont/Butcher.

Nektulos is two zones from Nro or WC, already existing Wizard ports which are closer to more often desired destinations (EC tunnel). Lavastorm puts you right next to Sol B. It's easily better.

Cazic portal requires an invis unless you're suicidal, isn't as condusive to group porting as Feerrott is, and isn't as close in overall travel time to the Plane of Fear or Guk (common 50 destinations). If you're using it under level 45ish, pray your invis doesn't break in the maze.

[Kava]

Agreed, I was just giving examples. Preference to ports is situational to each person, not a class deciding factor. And by situational, I mean to the rider, not the caster. I had a lot of people specifically ask for a Cazic port, to join a group there, and a lot of people laugh at me when they just needed to get to The Feerrott.

And yes, I've always hated the WK port, as it is redundant. They spires should have been placed much closer to the Q Hills zone.

[stormlord]

I haven't played a mage or wizard on p1999, but when Iwas doing old man mckenzie missions I played mages and wizards several times. What I noticed was that mages greatly helped the group with their pets and damage spells whereas the wizards had only slightly better damage spells (more types though) and no pet. The wizard might have had a few other plusses, but overall, in my groups we never did it without a mage and wizards were kind of like rangers in their usefulness. I'm not trying to be mean or anything, but this is how it worked.

I don't know. It seemed like wizards didn't really have a niche in the missions. Yes, they have more spell types but this wasn't really a concern most of the time. Their spells aren't significantly better and don't make up for not having a strong pet like the magician did. I could count fingers on one hand the number of times I might have been thankful we had a wizard, but that was mostly because we had a gimped group. Mages were always a big help. The missions were limited in scope, so maybe this isn't a fair assessment of the wizard class.

Old Man Mckenzie missions are level 50 content that's supposed to be similar to how it was back in the day. It's an instance you enter from POK. They're in nagafens lair, undead guk, live guk (no undead).

I think a lot of it has to do with what your group is doing. I know that hybrids tend to be a lot more useful when you're in a new place and dangers surprise you. But once you got everything figured out and you're into a pattern, I think the value of hybrids drops like a rock. They're really, i think, meant for dynamic situations that're borderline chaotic and tend towards isolating group members from one another. In situations where they're packed together and organized it's better to have specialized members that excel in certain areas. I mean, what good is a cleric heal if the cleric isn't nearby to heal you? What good is a enchanter if they're too far away to mez or slow? What good is a rogue if they can't get behind the mob? What good is a melee that can't invis if there's no one there to invis them? Etc. There were lots of examples in the old man mckenzie missions where I couold see the benefit of having hybrids, but once i figured things out and knew what to do I just couldn't justify having hybrids in hte group. Call it powergaming, but it's just a tactical reality in gaming.

I'm not saying wizards are hybrids. I'm saying that maybe the range of challenges in hte missions I did were not appropriate for the wizard to truly shine. This though would be just like a hybrid. If a group is challenged in certain ways you will see certain classes doing well and others not. It depends on what you're doing.

[Messianic]

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

I haven't played a mage or wizard on p1999, but when Iwas doing old man mckenzie missions I played mages and wizards several times. What I noticed was that mages greatly helped the group with their pets and damage spells whereas the wizards had only slightly better damage spells (more types though) and no pet. The wizard might have had a few other plusses, but overall, in my groups we never did it without a mage and wizards were kind of like rangers in their usefulness. I'm not trying to be mean or anything, but this is how it worked.

I don't know. It seemed like wizards didn't really have a niche in the missions. Yes, they have more spell types but this wasn't really a concern most of the time. Their spells aren't significantly better and don't make up for not having a strong pet like the magician did. I could count fingers on one hand the number of times I might have been thankful we had a wizard, but that was mostly because we had a gimped group. Mages were always a big help. The missions were limited in scope, so maybe this isn't a fair assessment of the wizard class.

Old Man Mckenzie missions are level 50 content that's supposed to be similar to how it was back in the day. It's an instance you enter from POK. They're in nagafens lair, undead guk, live guk (no undead).

I think a lot of it has to do with what your group is doing. I know that hybrids tend to be a lot more useful when you're in a new place and dangers surprise you. But once you got everything figured out and you're into a pattern, I think the value of hybrids drops like a rock. They're really, i think, meant for dynamic situations that're borderline chaotic and tend towards isolating group members from one another. In situations where they're packed together and organized it's better to have specialized members that excel in certain areas. I mean, what good is a cleric heal if the cleric isn't nearby to heal you? What good is a enchanter if they're too far away to mez or slow? What good is a rogue if they can't get behind the mob? What good is a melee that can't invis if there's no one there to invis them? Etc. There were lots of examples in the old man mckenzie missions where I couold see the benefit of having hybrids, but once i figured things out and knew what to do I just couldn't justify having hybrids in hte group. Call it powergaming, but it's just a tactical reality in gaming.

I'm not saying wizards are hybrids. I'm saying that maybe the range of challenges in hte missions I did were not appropriate for the wizard to truly shine. This though would be just like a hybrid. If a group is challenged in certain ways you will see certain classes doing well and others not. It depends on what you're doing.

From playing a wizard through 56 on live and having a friend who was a 60 mage through the velious era, this is basically true.

Mages have more reliable, sustained dps and only slightly worse nukes. Not that wizards suck, but they aren't part of the "perfect" group (if having a perfect group is necessary).

[Ghordo]

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

Did a search and really couldn't come up with a thread that properly answered this, so...

What's wrong with Wizards? I remember way more being on Live than I see here, and I keep seeing them get trashed on these forums (not to a Ranger degree, but still).

I know Mages are kings of everything in Classic, but don't lures become pretty important in order to reliably deal magic damage post-Classic? Is it because of the notorious AFK Wiztard legend? Or is it because the class is just boring/pointless to play, as other classes (Mage, Necro) just do their job "better" than Wizards?

play what you want and stop asking people retarded fucking questions.

[girth]

If you want a raiding character for Velious, wizard is highly needed for dps and mobility.

I wouldn't make one if you won't be raiding on him though.

[enzie]

I wouldn't make any class if you aren't planning to play them until Velious.. I mean, Kunark isn't even out yet. Get to 50 on a character you'll enjoy getting to 50 on, then see how you still feel when your 60 in Kunark, and twink out an alt.