OK! Da Noob is back, wid more questions?

[deKoven]

Lessee, it's been a couple weeks now ... I'm currently a lvl 22 Wiz using a staff I bought from a broker; good damage to it. What I'm wanting to know is this; is there another weapon or combination of weapons I could use to better advantage? I'm having problems in that even though I'm lvl 22 I can't take on even three-mob groups more than 3 to 4 lvls behind me. Specifically, every mob I meet up with seems to be a "Heroic" and nails me to the nearest tree in short order. This is not to even mention the occasional "Mr. Bad Guy" himself. I only have 3 or 4 really offensive spells to use; some of which don't regenerate all that easily. I did pick up one very good "Gnoll killer" spell but that one takes several realtime minutes to regenerate so can't be used on more than one char in a mob. The other 2 or 3 take me down in short order. <img src="/smilies/e78feac27fa924c4d0ad6cf5819f3554.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /><img src="/smilies/2e207fad049d4d292f60607f80f05768.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[infraredd76]

<p>Ok first off on a wizard the weapon itself it not as important as the stats on the weapon. (ie int, power, and stuff) Basically all your damage comes from spells which are based upon your intelligence. The higher your int the more damage your spells will do. The amount of damage from swinging that staff around is gonna be very small compared to the damage from your spells.</p><p>Always remember as a wizard your spells are your lifeline. So try to keep them upgraded as much as possible. Go for at least adept 1 level which can be bought from the broker or looted from chest drops. Also check your equipment and try to wear things that have int stats on them to increase your over all damage. </p><p>If all else fails root/nuke. Keep one of the mob rooted at a safe distance till you deal with the others then go in for the kill. As a wizard root will be used alot. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Hoppytehubah]

Well for one, as a wizard, you shouldn't be letting the mobs hit you. So your staff should be high INT, not high damage. You use your root and snare lines to keep the mobs away from you, and use your dots and nukes to burn them down. Your Gnoll mastery spell is obviously, for gnolls only and is a large, slow regen spell. I save my master strikes for emergencies or "boss" fights. A wizard could better give you advice on this, but for groups of mobs, you should be using your AE spells. These are very strong spells that will damage all of the mobs at once. You might (Im a conj I dunno) have a spell as well that gives you a form of stoneskin (allows you to take so many hits without damage). That kind of spell if great when you are taking on a group of mobs since you need to be fairly close to use your AE spells. Ask this over in the wizard forum and you should get some good tips.

[Delameko Stone]

As a wizard I wouldn't worry about the damage of the staff, as you'll do very little melee damage anyway.  Look for stats boosters, specifically +int which will increased your spell damage. Avoid heroic mobs altogether, especially groups of them, they're intended for groups.  For regular groups you needs to break them up.  Use your root keep them at a distance, because your armour is weak.  I don't play a wizard so I don't know the spellset, but use your non-damage spells to take other mobs of the equation so you can defeat them one at a time.

[Leemeg]

<p>Not easy to know whats wrong without a bit more details, but i will come with a few suggestions. As a wizzard you will not be focusing on melee damage, so the actual damage rating of your staff is kinda unimportant. It is the stats and the procs that it is on the weapons that is important for you. I would be looking for weapon that gives +INT (which will increase your spell damage). </p><p>The tactics for all the mage is to "lock" down the mob and burn it down from a distance, i.e. preventing the mob to hit you. So, if you are soloing alot, then your root spells is very important, and needs a upgrade to the heighest you can afford. If you are mostly grouping with other players, the root spell is almost never used at all. So its up to you <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>My first impression of your problems seems like low quality on your spells. Have you upgraded them from apprentice I? Since Apprentice I spell is kinda bad. You should try to get hold of some higher quality spells, atleast App4 or adept1. I know that t2 and t3 spells is expensive for new started players (it will get relative cheaper higher up in tiers), but you should atleast try to upgrade it. And for a mage, the spell quality is more important than equipment in the begining.</p><p>The mobs in the game is divided into difficulty categories, as you have noticed, so here is a short discription of the difficulty of the mobs: <not marked>: Balanced for solo play or duo play. Blue or white is ok to fight for the average player. <heroics>: Balanced for duo/trio and up to full group. Blue or white is ok to fight for a average geard group. <epics>: x2: Balanced for 2 full groups, x3: Balanced for 3 full groups, x4: balanced for 4 full groups. Within these categories there is a more detail grade of the difficulty. Often refered to as "Arrows", and can be noticed by some filled arrow shape above the mobs name.  It is 7 types of arrow combinations: v, vv, vvv, -, ^ , ^^, ^^^, where v is the easiest and ^^^ is the hardest. These arrows  in combination often reflect the difficulty of the group encouter in total. </p><p>Example: </p><ul><li>1^^^ Mob is about equal in difficulty as 2 ^^ mobs linked in one encouner.</li><li>1^^ mob is about equal in difficulty as 2 ^ mobs linked in one encounter.</li><li>This may lead to 1^^^ mob is about equal in difficulty to a encouter with 64 vvv mobs (Never tested this out, since I don't think there is a encouter that is that big in the game, but the "Aoe room" in hof is pretty close to it, but divided into 3 encouters.</li></ul><p>In addition to these two level of difficulty signs, there is a third level of indication. These is often refered to as "Brackets", and can be seen as type of brackets the name of the mob has around its name. It is hard to explain how it looks like, but no bracket is easiest and the larger the brackets is, the harder the mob is. </p><p>And in the end, any mobs that is categorised as a named, will normally have larger health pool and higher damage output than the same level of difficulty of a non-named mob.</p><p>Hope this helps, if not, don't hesitate to ask more <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Didi]

<p>Have a <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=350525" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">read of this post</a>, it'll help you understand what you should be lookign for when equipping yourself.  As the folks above said, INT INT INT and more INT is the message of the day for wizards, but just in general, keeping your gear within your current tier is going to help a lot too.  That means, at level 22, you should ideally not be wearing any gear rated below level 20.  And if you're still wearing newbie isle stuff, no wonder you're struggling.  Get thee to a broker or find a friendly tailor and at least get a set of tranquil canvas robes - better yet, get some ruckas stuff made if you find a dandelion fibre while out harvesting.</p><p>Spell-wise, make sure that everything you're using is Apprentice IV quality at best (sages make these for you), and if you can find/afford a better quality for your biggest nukes, all the better.</p>

[deKoven]

Hmmm, much food for thought there. Lessee ... I <u>always</u>, right from the start, keep my spells up to as good as I can afford. I thought that one had to take on those mobs; for quests which need one to go to a specific area to find a "key" one almost has to take them on. I guess I misled folks in my post; I do know that actual melee damage isn't of much importance. However, if one has a "big stick" one can use it to "finish off" that last little bit thus saving one's next spell for the next baddie down the line. The reason I bought the staff off the broker was that the stats were fairly good, not because it has a good wallop. Thanks go to all for the suggestions. I still haven't settled on a particular char type yet. Yesterday I spent the whole day (11 hours) with a Fey; first time I've gone from Kelethin.