AA changes. How will they affect wizards?

[stepha72]

<p>"GU36 contains a significant update to many Class Tree achievements, aimed at removing most of the equipment restrictions on achievement abilities, improving their usability with pets, and balancing out desireability between the different branches of the Class Trees. Weapon specific requirements were originally meant to diversify the kinds of weapons that players would want to use and identify a character with a particular achievement branch. Popular achievement branches reinforced certain weapon types, for example, it greatly lowered the desirability of axes versus swords for a particular class if the swords branch was more powerful. This introduced new problems with desirability of loot and quest rewards. We've removed most of those requirements, reserving them only for the few branches that require shields and ranged weapons. Pet Achievements were tedious to use; their buffs almost always required recasting them every time the pet zoned. The EoF achievements added new functionality for achievement buffs to be applied permanently on the pet that was not available in KoS. This has now been added to all KoS Class achievements that permanently buff a pet type. We've analyzed the achievement spending patterns of each class to determine which branches are the most popular and which ones are greatly underutilized. A large part of this update to class achievements has been to increase the power of the least desired achievements. The few cases where an achievement received a reduction were made to balance out a penalizing equipment requirement that was removed as part of the update."</p><p>Just wondering what everyones thoughts are on how this will affect us?</p>

[TsarRasput]

Well you could speculate a lot of things, but ultimately we have to see the changes and re-evaluate how they are in relation to the others.  If for example Wis removes the offhand restriction, that could make that line even more powerful.  However they could completely nerf brainstorm to do it.  Until we see the changes we there's no way to know what it will do to us.

[TheBu]

<b>TsarRasputin</b> you speak blasphemy. please dont combine those two words freehand and ... well u know

[TerabithianWhisperwi]

uhhh. Tsar didn't. I read it like 10 times. No mention of Freehand anywhere. And the changes will only bring good things. It bodes well for all.

[TerabithianWhisperwi]

I think, though, that we could go a long way toward predicting what changes will occur to the WIS line by asking ourselves what the most advantageous offhand items are. I mean, are there crazy offhand items that provide a flat percent boost to spell damage, or basically any items that would stack with things we already have? If so, that's where you'd see a cut. If not, then no worries.  I'm actually very interested to see if our lesser-used lines (sta, int) get some sort of crazy boosts. let's think positive! And let's hope for that free respec!!

[Mirander_1]

The wis line is going to be nerfed as part of this; it's inevitable, just accept it now. As for lines that will be buffed, has anyone ever even <i>heard</i> of someone taking the int line?  Me neither.  I'd call that the prime candidate for buffage.

[Mastire]

<p>Sorcerer</p><ul><li>Starter - Summon Familiar: The type of familiar is no longer determined by weapon; Instead it is determined by casting a different ability. </li><li>Stamina 2 - Static Shield: Removed first rank parry bonus, but no longer requires a symbol. </li><li>Stamina 3 - Battlemage Armor: Increased physical mitigation bonus. </li><li>Stamina 4 - Battlemage's Fervor: Also increases Subjugation and Ordination skill. </li><li>Stamina 5 - Manashield: Improved damage to mana consumed ratio from 1:1 to 2:1. </li><li>Wisdom 2 - Freehand Sorcery: No longer requires no weapon equipped, but reduced bonus to begin at 10% at rank 1. However now it stacks with Brainstorm and other spell damage increase achievements. </li><li>Wisdom 3 - Ward of Sages: No longer requires no weapon equipped. Only protects against non-physical damage. </li><li>Wisdom 4 - Brainstorm: No longer requires no weapon equipped, but reduced bonus to 0.5% per rank. However now it stacks with Freehand Sorcery and other spell damage increase achievements. </li><li>Wisdom 5 - Sagacity: Effect stacks with other achievements that reduce power cost. </li><li>Intelligence 2 - Confounding Staff: Renamed Confounding: Also added ranged distance of 35 meters to attack using your weapon. </li><li>Intelligence 4 - Kinetic Avoidance: Hate percent reduction improved from 1.25% to 2%. </li><li>Intelligence 5 - Concussive Blast: Spell is now an area effect that instantly drops hate position instead of adding a hate reduction proc.</li></ul>

[Force Weaver]

I can see why those who live by the parse may be sad but for the non-raiding game that Stamina line got even more attractive for group and solo gameplay.  2:1 instead of 1:1 for manashield, wow!  More physical mitigation to boot!  Looks like they were listening to Illusive's suggestions that the Focus/Disruption bonus should also give bonus to the subjugation and ordination while they were at it.  I'm sure some of this is to offset the nerfs to fusion and ice nova in PvP but it sure is nice in PvE.  The Int line hate position reduction looks attractive although I'm not getting an intuitive feel for what kind of style this tweaked INT line is aimed at.

[Mirander_1]

Well, looking at the patch notes, and watching others try and crunch the numbers; this is more or less the way it stands, from what I can tell: Wis is nerfed.  It <i>seems </i>like the nerf puts it more-or-less on par with  the str and agi lines.  People will probably be spending the next couple months trying to figure out which combo is the best DPS-wise. Sta always had its merits for soloing and pvp, and this only adds to it.  Nothing really to complain about here. Int, well, I don't know.  This is perhaps the least popular of our AA lines, and I don't know if the changes will be enough to change this.  Perhaps the hate reduction will prove sufficient to allow people to go more all-out on nuking to match the dps of the str/agi/wis lines; or maybe not.  This is something that people will probably need to play around with first-hand before concrete statements can be made on its usefulness.

[TheBu]

<li>Wisdom 2 - Freehand Sorcery: No longer requires no weapon equipped, but reduced bonus to begin at 10% at rank 1. However now it stacks with Brainstorm and other spell damage increase achievements. </li><li>Wisdom 4 - Brainstorm: No longer requires no weapon equipped, but reduced bonus to 0.5% per rank. However now it stacks with Freehand Sorcery and other spell damage increase achievements.</li><p>Please note the "reduced bonus" repeated in each of thez.. Did brainstorm not stack Freehand Sorcery before? what spell damage increases did not work with thez?</p><p>a little math...</p><p>Freehand: for 16 to 10 u need to multiply it by .625 to get it "reduced" Brainstorm... well easy from 1% to .5%     50% "reduced" or reduction of all our spell by 4%? Please tell me i am reading this wrong  and that if i use brainstorm i am not getting a 4% reduction in dps</p><p>[edit] corrected a little math .. heheh from 5% to 4% still bites the big one</p>

[Avokk]

Yep, from the patch notes wording it looks we will be able to use 2hb staff and use WIS line abilities... Still cant use shield/symbol in there, which would put some vaseline on that nerf of about 5-6% DPS all across the board (4% from Brainstorm which is a 50% nerf to that ability and the 6% nerf to Freehand) Now if Sagacity would have been upped from 12% to 24% power consumption reduction, that would have counter balanced that DPS nerf as we would spend less time leaching for power on long fights... If shields and symbols (Necro orb + Fitz prot FTW !) could be allowed, and some other tweaks done, could also deal with it, but as it now stands, that patch is bad news for wizards that are probably gonna fall further behind of those dual weilding 1h weapons rogues...

[Griffinhart]

<cite>TheBuzZ wrote:</cite><blockquote><li>Wisdom 2 - Freehand Sorcery: No longer requires no weapon equipped, but reduced bonus to begin at 10% at rank 1. However now it stacks with Brainstorm and other spell damage increase achievements. </li><li>Wisdom 4 - Brainstorm: No longer requires no weapon equipped, but reduced bonus to 0.5% per rank. However now it stacks with Freehand Sorcery and other spell damage increase achievements.</li><p>Please note the "reduced bonus" repeated in each of thez.. Did brainstorm not stack Freehand Sorcery before? what spell damage increases did not work with thez?</p><p>a little math...</p><p>Freehand: for 16 to 10 u need to multiply it by .625 to get it "reduced" Brainstorm... well easy from 1% to .5%     50% "reduced" or reduction of all our spell by 5%? Please tell me i am reading this wrong  and that if i use brainstorm i am not getting a 5% reduction in dps</p></blockquote><p> This has got me all sorts of concerned.  </p><p>At best this means that The Wis line will get me a 4% damage bonus with a 34% damage bonus when freehand is used(one nuke once a minute).  But that's only if they haven't reduced the total bonus for Freehand.  Given the reduction at teir 1, I'm concerned that it may be lower than the 30% when maxed out.</p><p>Currently the line gives me 8% for all spells with one spell a minute at 30%.    That potentially means that using these lines could see a drop in DPS from what it was previously on average nuke amounts.  Lucky hits and cirts may see higher damage totals but the overal DPS may be lower than the current situation.</p><p>Add in Ward of Sages not working on Melee damage and the Wisdom line is seeing a general nerf.  Especially considering that the new ability for them to stack with other AA abilities is just symantics since I don't beleive any other wizard AA line offers lower power cost or increased damage.  Just decreased resistability, range and sometimes recast speed.</p><p>Some of the other AA changes seem nice, but mostly useless to me.  I would be slightly more survivable, but in groups I almost never die now and I rarely die on the raids I have been on unless there was a wipe.</p>

[sgbarber]

<cite>TerabithianWhisperwind wrote:</cite><blockquote> uhhh. Tsar didn't. I read it like 10 times. No mention of Freehand anywhere. And the changes will only bring good things. It bodes well for all. </blockquote> Are you some sort of SoE plant?  I do not understand how anyone rational can look at the AA changes and think they are "good". I heard they were making improvements to the AA lines, primarily to make the less-desirable lines more desirable. The first thing I thought was, I wonder what new skills the stamina line will have, this could be really cool. .... then I read the changes ... They improved the efficiency of extraordinary low utility skills... so they are still completely useless because they do the same useless things. If they want to make the stamina line for wizards useful, it needs to... do something. Then they fixed stacking problems with the existing AA lines - then NERFED THE LINE EVERYONE USES to compensate. This is not an "improvement" and the people responsible for that line of [explenative: lie] are complete [explenative: jerks]. It's a nerf, don't pretend like it's an improvement. Freehand affects 1 spell, the decreases to many other DPS AA abilities to compensate for 1 freehanded spell is [explenative: very stupid]. If I said what I really thought I'd probably get banned, so that's as nice I could put it.

[sgbarber]

<cite>Griffinhart wrote:</cite><blockquote>TheBuzZ wrote: <snip> <p>Some of the other AA changes seem nice, but mostly useless to me.  I would be slightly more survivable, but in groups I almost never die now and I rarely die on the raids I have been on unless there was a wipe.</p></blockquote> Exactly.  In order for the stamina lines skills to remain the same and become useful, they would have to be extremely powerful - Last 60 seconds, reflects all incoming damage at 50%, and consumes 10:1 power (10 damage = 1 power) Then you might consider taking it so you could survive and still DPS when you get agro or use it to tank some named mob. Adding a stifle would prevent it from turning wizards into uber solo'ers if that's a concern. The skill needs to turn the wizard into a tank long enough to kill the mob or survive the encounter... or it's useless. A regen line or an improved resist line could be interesting (since there seems to be some confusion over what "improved" means, improved resist would mean <b>reduced or nullified </b>probability<b> </b>to have spells resisted.)

[Force Weaver]

<p>   I disagree completely unless you're describing how the Sta line should be changed to be worthy of speccing for a raid Wizard.  Or rather how it should be to be worthy of not speccing to max DPS for a raider.  I don't think they want the Sta line to be raid attractive.  Unless you want to be a raid tank or survive every time you steal aggro from the tank the combined defensive lines and equipment (not counting ROK upcoming equipment) are extremely powerful as they are now.  These changes are only going to make them more effective.</p><p>  I've been Agi/Sta almost from the beginning.  Sta is powerful when combined with proper tactics and EOF lines and equipment.  For instance right now I have a chance to proc a 300 pt ward from the Shield of the Magi secondary slot item when I receive damage, a chance to proc a 400pt ward from an Enspelled Vultak Eye, and a regenerating 536?pt ward at lvl 70 from the EOF Magi's Shielding line, a 80% boost to the "oh crap my hp's are 30%" spell [2400pt emergency ward instead of ~1300ish ].  Not to mention that "5 extra reach" does affect the time it takes for the mob to get to you increasing your opportunity to slow, root, stun, etc.  Going Agi lets you cast more stuns and more roots more often.  When you first spec for the "reach" you may not really notice it but play with it for a week and you'll miss it if you spec out.  Don't forget you get a little passive damage, increased physical mitigation, and better "to hit" with most of your damage spells when going Sta.</p><p>   In anything Heroic/Solo I'm constantly just letting anything blue/green just come up to me and hit me, my 536? ward eats some initial physical hits, my 300 pt ward procs from the hits I recieve, I'm casting so then my 400 pt ward procs (since I'm casting faster its almost always up), in between the 300 and 400 pt wards being eaten the 536 ward is regenerating, I'm taking less damage since I'm higher mitigation, I'm wasting less power since almost every spell I cast lands (Sta right now doesn't help with roots but with this update it will make them more effective), and if I grab too many mobs I just Numbing Cold to slow the mobs hit my save me button labeled "Manashield" and run away enjoying the higher in combat movement offered from the Agi line.  The whole time also thanking my lucky stars that my emergency ward is now 2400 pts rather than 1300ish.  Having a dualboxed healer only makes you even more uber/enabled solo or soloing heroic zones.</p><p>   In instance groups I can tank most of the trash up close and personal although it is an inefficient use of the healer's power which would be better spent healing a tank class.  If the tank's not plate I constantly grab aggro since they got jipped on AOE taunts but suffer relatively no consequences as long as the healer doesn't fall asleep.</p><p>   In random pick up raids where most are Legendary equipped I'm not that far behind in the parse of other T1 DPS specced differently, but I have managed to grab aggro from Raid mobs, pulled the chicken maneuver while hitting the manashield button enjoying the complete defensive spec build enjoying the "man I thought you were a goner" comments from raid members.  It doesn't happen all the time for all mobs but most times that I die I find I forgot about the little blue button I have on my hotbar or was too close to the mob not being able to hit the manashield button fast enough.  Making it 2:1 instead of 1:1 and increasing the mitigation some more, increasing the ability of my roots to stick, etc. will enable me to do even more in game.  This isn't counting ROK gear, spells, etc. that is coming out.  </p><p>  Wis nerf looks bad on the surface but maybe there's a ROK uber staff that puts you at effective 12% brainstorm or something so everyone can spec differently and still enjoy broad DPS gains.  Maybe the stuff they have in ROK & the current KOS setup for us trivializes content in T8.  Not to mention I'm not clear if we are getting new AA trees or able to spend more points in the ones we have i.e. 75 pts KOS 75 pts EOF.  I thought I read how 50pts is the limit because of unbalancing issues if we got more.  Maybe we're getting more so we all get 3 lines in KOS so they need to balance it now with that in mind.</p>

[sgbarber]

Force Weaver wrote: <blockquote><p>   I disagree completely unless you're describing how the Sta line should be changed to be worthy of speccing for a raid Wizard.  Or rather how it should be to be worthy of not speccing to max DPS for a raider.  I don't think they want the Sta line to be raid attractive.  Unless you want to be a raid tank or survive every time you steal aggro from the tank the combined defensive lines and equipment (not counting ROK upcoming equipment) are extremely powerful as they are now.  These changes are only going to make them more effective.</p><p>  I've been Agi/Sta almost from the beginning.  Sta is powerful when combined with proper tactics and EOF lines and equipment.  For instance right now I have a chance to proc a 300 pt ward from the Shield of the Magi secondary slot item when I receive damage, a chance to proc a 400pt ward from an Enspelled Vultak Eye, and a regenerating 536?pt ward at lvl 70 from the EOF Magi's Shielding line, a 80% boost to the "oh crap my hp's are 30%" spell [2400pt emergency ward instead of ~1300ish ].  Not to mention that "5 extra reach" does affect the time it takes for the mob to get to you increasing your opportunity to slow, root, stun, etc.  Going Agi lets you cast more stuns and more roots more often.  When you first spec for the "reach" you may not really notice it but play with it for a week and you'll miss it if you spec out.  Don't forget you get a little passive damage, increased physical mitigation, and better "to hit" with most of your damage spells when going Sta.</p><p>   In anything Heroic/Solo I'm constantly just letting anything blue/green just come up to me and hit me, my 536? ward eats some initial physical hits, my 300 pt ward procs from the hits I recieve, I'm casting so then my 400 pt ward procs (since I'm casting faster its almost always up), in between the 300 and 400 pt wards being eaten the 536 ward is regenerating, I'm taking less damage since I'm higher mitigation, I'm wasting less power since almost every spell I cast lands (Sta right now doesn't help with roots but with this update it will make them more effective), and if I grab too many mobs I just Numbing Cold to slow the mobs hit my save me button labeled "Manashield" and run away enjoying the higher in combat movement offered from the Agi line.  The whole time also thanking my lucky stars that my emergency ward is now 2400 pts rather than 1300ish.  Having a dualboxed healer only makes you even more uber/enabled solo or soloing heroic zones.</p><p>   In instance groups I can tank most of the trash up close and personal although it is an inefficient use of the healer's power which would be better spent healing a tank class.  If the tank's not plate I constantly grab aggro since they got jipped on AOE taunts but suffer relatively no consequences as long as the healer doesn't fall asleep.</p><p>   In random pick up raids where most are Legendary equipped I'm not that far behind in the parse of other T1 DPS specced differently, but I have managed to grab aggro from Raid mobs, pulled the chicken maneuver while hitting the manashield button enjoying the complete defensive spec build enjoying the "man I thought you were a goner" comments from raid members.  It doesn't happen all the time for all mobs but most times that I die I find I forgot about the little blue button I have on my hotbar or was too close to the mob not being able to hit the manashield button fast enough.  Making it 2:1 instead of 1:1 and increasing the mitigation some more, increasing the ability of my roots to stick, etc. will enable me to do even more in game.  This isn't counting ROK gear, spells, etc. that is coming out.  </p><p>  Wis nerf looks bad on the surface but maybe there's a ROK uber staff that puts you at effective 12% brainstorm or something so everyone can spec differently and still enjoy broad DPS gains.  Maybe the stuff they have in ROK & the current KOS setup for us trivializes content in T8.  Not to mention I'm not clear if we are getting new AA trees or able to spend more points in the ones we have i.e. 75 pts KOS 75 pts EOF.  I thought I read how 50pts is the limit because of unbalancing issues if we got more.  Maybe we're getting more so we all get 3 lines in KOS so they need to balance it now with that in mind.</p></blockquote> Perhaps I'm missing something, does GU37 not go live for 5 months?  Why does RoK matter at all?  And even if there was some uber +dps staff, it should stack with brainstorm (it's a bug if it doesn't!). I've heard that there will be no more AA points to get for RoK and after this round of AA "improvements" I am not too excited about the next time they improve them. The stamina line ability has too long of a recast on it and last too short a time period to be effective.  Even when soloing you're better off rooting the mobs and taking them out.  If you have catalyst & freehand you can 1 shot that blue/green mob you're tanking. You have to normalize the comparison to yourself, it doesn't matter what other wizards are doing; if you had str or wis instead of sta you know you'd be able to do more DPS and be able to do massive spike DPS (30 seconds worth of DPS in about 10 seconds) which is more effective than a 30 second immunity nevermind a 30 second power drain. The only scenario where the mana shield helps is if you are trying to tank a mob you can't root... which generally means you can't solo it either. If they had just made the stamina line better, 90%+ of wizards would be uneffected and uninterested; but they nerf'd a bunch of other AA's. So it doesn't matter how great they made the unintresting AA line it does not justify a nerf to the popular ones.

[Force Weaver]

<p>I thought they made changes thinking "long term" like how unpopular combat revamps during past LU''s had players from certain classes fleeing in droves but they made them anyways.  5 months for them is pretty short term.  I'm also on PvE, so i'm only coming from the non-PvP angle of pro Sta.  </p><p>That spike damage for me with Str/Agi wasn't enough to compensate for the loss of mitigation at rank 8 from the Sta.  I did more spike dps but didn't finish the mobs while grouping or soloing.  The immunity/powerdrain isn't used that much as it's just an emergency oops I grabbed aggro give the tank time to grab it back or oops I pulled 5 adds give me time to Numbing Cold get away to reset.</p><p>I did try Str/Agi with Ice instead of Sta/Agi with Shielding (sorry don't have 100 aa).  I killed stuff faster, died more often when I was added while soloing or stole aggro when grouping heroics.  I grab aggro now Sta/Agi without really loading the spell que, I grabbed aggro on the 3rd strike Str/Agi while grouping and ended up tanking and dieing anyhow since the healer couldn't keep up.  I killed stuff faster while soloing but I ended up waiting alot for my health to come back whereas I do less waiting for power/health when I have that rank 8 mitigation bonus.  My damage spells almost always never get resisted now on Sta but without it I get a noticeable amount of resists.</p><p>The increased mitigation and that diminishing returns curve make that Sta line powerful.  Manashield is a bonus button but the increased disruption and mitigation is what makes it attractive.  The cast time reduction on Agi is the DPS maker, that recast reducer isn't as critical on short burst fights.  Just like brainstorm is the DPS maker on Wis and the power reduction is like a bonus.  On the Sta its that mitigation buff maxed at 8 ranks that put you up a teir.  Box with an inq with the +mitigation buff and you become chain.  Add the ward options in EOF AA / Gear and you can tank instances as a duo.  With this update I won't even have to duo, I might actually be able to solo green and blues in instances at a reasonable pace.</p><p>I only use that manashield button when I get added or can't handle 12 blue solo's simultaneously (interrupts), 10's a cake chain pulling time after time.  Usually it comes in handy when you don't want to drop the 20 gold on repairs because you're not with a plate tank.  I don't use manashield except when I make a mistake and take more than I can handle or get distracted behind the keyboard.  It doesn't enable you to beat an encounter it makes it so you visit your mender less often or gives your tank time to grab the mob off you so your healer doesn't have to rez you.  It's an emergency ability to allow you to reset your encounter by running it off or evacing.  </p><p>SOE's problem lies in the fact they have a hard time convincing end game players who picked Wiz because they wanted glass cannons to use AA's to become iron cannons rather than crystal howitzers.  Str/Agi =  nasty group DPS for instancing for me, Agi/Sta = great soloing, and of course Agi/Wis for the team Raider.  Everyone having their howitzers reduced in caliber is understandably not happy that SOE is trying to encourage some of them to become steel cannons now, but different playstyles match different builds and new low lvl wiz chars are complaining they solo and get lots of resists of roots and other spells dieing constantly.  Alot of us 70's tell them hit 50 and it will get better.  SOE wants new ppl to stay so these Sta changes are more low lvl friendly for Wiz not to mention even it out more in PvP.</p>

[Legiax]

<p>From a PvP perspective, and from someone who duo's a lot... the STA tree is a god send.</p><p>Amazing work by the Devs on the line, but they could of worked on AGI / INT a bit more and tweaked them imo. However that said, STA absolutely owns now, I love the changes as it actually holds true to its name of "Battle Mage" instead of "Mana - suck all your power in 1 hit - Shield Mage", tbh.</p><p>Good Job Devs <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[enrond]

Problem is, that a "steel cannon" will never beat the [Removed for Content] ranger, and top the parse, which is my only goal <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Darien al'Staff]

Your slapping raid wizards in the face with these changes SOE. PLEASE give us SOMETHING. 

[Force Weaver]

You're right a "steel cannon" won't beat the other DPS on a raid but the "reduced howitzer" probably still will own.  Alot of the DPS lines on AA's of all classes been nerfed across the board.  It will be interesting to see if all were nerfed equally.

[Ditria]

I use str and wis lines on because imo they kick out more dps than the other lines,  I kick out 100 more dps per raid same equipage  than the agi and wis line.  I would say from what i heard is that the freehand sorcery will now stack with brainstorm.  I am think i am going to be doing alot of testing these next couple of weeks till we get these figured out. I also use manaburn on a regular basis, if you have enough ft on you, you will cast one health -> mana spell and then after that you would be ok.  I am thinking it will have to be a mix of aas that will be setup in new lines to maximize dps.

[ShodiII]

Force Weaver wrote: <blockquote><p>   I disagree completely unless you're describing how the Sta line should be changed to be worthy of speccing for a raid Wizard.  Or rather how it should be to be worthy of not speccing to max DPS for a raider.  I don't think they want the Sta line to be raid attractive.  Unless you want to be a raid tank or survive every time you steal aggro from the tank the combined defensive lines and equipment (not counting ROK upcoming equipment) are extremely powerful as they are now.  These changes are only going to make them more effective.</p><p>  I've been Agi/Sta almost from the beginning.  Sta is powerful when combined with proper tactics and EOF lines and equipment.  For instance right now I have a chance to proc a 300 pt ward from the Shield of the Magi secondary slot item when I receive damage, a chance to proc a 400pt ward from an Enspelled Vultak Eye, and a regenerating 536?pt ward at lvl 70 from the EOF Magi's Shielding line, a 80% boost to the "oh crap my hp's are 30%" spell [2400pt emergency ward instead of ~1300ish ].  Not to mention that "5 extra reach" does affect the time it takes for the mob to get to you increasing your opportunity to slow, root, stun, etc.  Going Agi lets you cast more stuns and more roots more often.  When you first spec for the "reach" you may not really notice it but play with it for a week and you'll miss it if you spec out.  Don't forget you get a little passive damage, increased physical mitigation, and better "to hit" with most of your damage spells when going Sta.</p><p>   In anything Heroic/Solo I'm constantly just letting anything blue/green just come up to me and hit me, my 536? ward eats some initial physical hits, my 300 pt ward procs from the hits I recieve, I'm casting so then my 400 pt ward procs (since I'm casting faster its almost always up), in between the 300 and 400 pt wards being eaten the 536 ward is regenerating, I'm taking less damage since I'm higher mitigation, I'm wasting less power since almost every spell I cast lands (Sta right now doesn't help with roots but with this update it will make them more effective), and if I grab too many mobs I just Numbing Cold to slow the mobs hit my save me button labeled "Manashield" and run away enjoying the higher in combat movement offered from the Agi line.  The whole time also thanking my lucky stars that my emergency ward is now 2400 pts rather than 1300ish.  Having a dualboxed healer only makes you even more uber/enabled solo or soloing heroic zones.</p><p>   In instance groups I can tank most of the trash up close and personal although it is an inefficient use of the healer's power which would be better spent healing a tank class.  If the tank's not plate I constantly grab aggro since they got jipped on AOE taunts but suffer relatively no consequences as long as the healer doesn't fall asleep.</p><p>   In random pick up raids where most are Legendary equipped I'm not that far behind in the parse of other T1 DPS specced differently, but I have managed to grab aggro from Raid mobs, pulled the chicken maneuver while hitting the manashield button enjoying the complete defensive spec build enjoying the "man I thought you were a goner" comments from raid members.  It doesn't happen all the time for all mobs but most times that I die I find I forgot about the little blue button I have on my hotbar or was too close to the mob not being able to hit the manashield button fast enough.  Making it 2:1 instead of 1:1 and increasing the mitigation some more, increasing the ability of my roots to stick, etc. will enable me to do even more in game.  This isn't counting ROK gear, spells, etc. that is coming out.  </p><p>  Wis nerf looks bad on the surface but maybe there's a ROK uber staff that puts you at effective 12% brainstorm or something so everyone can spec differently and still enjoy broad DPS gains.  Maybe the stuff they have in ROK & the current KOS setup for us trivializes content in T8.  Not to mention I'm not clear if we are getting new AA trees or able to spend more points in the ones we have i.e. 75 pts KOS 75 pts EOF.  I thought I read how 50pts is the limit because of unbalancing issues if we got more.  Maybe we're getting more so we all get 3 lines in KOS so they need to balance it now with that in mind.</p></blockquote><p> As a 70 wiz with Str and Wis line I can solo the nest daily. I don't see how the staminaline and the manashield woudl help me solo anny better... Imo a wizard should beat mobs by DMG/DPS not by getting beaten at and then powerdrained so he has to flee <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />  Just my opinion though, and maybe the opinion of alot of other wizards who preffers to go all out DPS. If the staminaline or anny other line would help me clear the nest orother instances in a more efficient way then I would like to know about it <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> </p><p>PS, Im a raid wizzard so I would love to keep my DPS on raids aswell <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />  (Imo DPS and less powerusage= good soloing ability aswell) So Str and wis is my choice for now <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> </p>

[TerabithianWhisperwi]

Well, you're level 70. duh. Maybe the AGI/STA build would have gotten you to 70 twice as fast! I think he said back a ways that a STA build was better-suited to lower-level players. As for me, I'm currently level 37, with the AGI line and 2 more points for Manaburn in the Wiz line. AGI allows everything to happen faster, and this is always always always a good thing. I'll then add either the STR tree or the WIS tree to it. I think, again, what people need to look at is what we can now equip with the various "nerfed" lines to compensate. I'm willing to bet there's some awfully nice secondary items out there. I, for one, appreciated the take on the STA-line. Had I read that post back when I started, I'd have probably tried the STA-line as my first line. So now I have read very good takes on the STR, AGI, STA, and WIS lines. I have yet to read anything worth reading on the INT line, which is a bit odd considering our class, and all. -Morticandarius, 37th wiz of Mistmoore, neeeeeeds a sig.

[Nastharl]

Nothing we can equip in our offhand increases our overall damage delt 4%. Its a nerf.

[simpwrx02]

The ability to solo nest has nothing to do with AA setups at all, I have done it with agi/wis, but with out most of the damage benefits from wis because I use a 2h staff with a heal proc when I figth the boss as I like the 445 health proc over the 8% damage I get from haveing the offhand free.  The ability to solo imho is more on player skill than AAs, well I take that back most contested herioc names can be slaughtered with a crit ice nova into a freehand manaburn.

[TsarRasput]

All this change is going to is push Min/Maxers like myself in to STR/AGI from WIS/AGI up to GU36, WIS was a base 8% boost to your dps and STR was a 5.4% dps boost from crits (based on this thread <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=353709" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=353709</a>  So taking 0.45% per 1% of crit and 12% crits = 0.45 * 12 = 5.4% dps boost)  So to beat WIS with STR, you needed a secondary item to be able to a 3.6% damage boost, which I could not find any item able of doing that much damage.  With this nerf to WIS, both now can have a secondary, so thats not a factor.  So the only factor is base DPS boost, I consider Catalyst and Freehand Sorcery to be about on par with each other, so their a wash.  That means the 12% crit vs 4% dps boost.  12% is 5.4% dps boost, so I'll be moving to STR/AGI after this change. On a plus side, when all is said and done, I'll be running at just shy of 40% crit which will be fun to see all the big numbers, and can bump it over with temp buffs 1% Base 12% AA 8% Fabled Set 1% Lambent Magi's Second Sight 2% Novum Tectum 2% Mote of Glowing Magic 2.9% AA Pet 7.5% DKTM ------------------- 36.4% Temp buffs: 4% Second Sight Potion 3% Boots of Terror ------- 43.4% Crit

[Nastharl]

Other math done by people shows the str aa line adding about 4.03 dps off crit. So, its a crapshoot. And i prefer Freehand to Catalyst any day of the week. If you have that massive of a crit, whats the point of catalyst? The spell might have crit anyway. With that much crit, freehand is going to be owning because you'll be critting an already boosted spell. Wis line also gets brainstorm, which means you can burn 12% longer.

[slippery]

Nastharl@Nektulos wrote: <blockquote>Other math done by people shows the str aa line adding about 4.03 dps off crit. So, its a crapshoot. And i prefer Freehand to Catalyst any day of the week. If you have that massive of a crit, whats the point of catalyst? The spell might have crit anyway. With that much crit, freehand is going to be owning because you'll be critting an already boosted spell. Wis line also gets brainstorm, which means you can burn 12% longer. </blockquote> He means sagacity for the 12% power :p But the point is there, Agi/Wis is still the better spec for raid dps since 11.7% crits is ~4.06% dps increase (however, if you had 28% crits already like Tsar would without str line you'd only actually see a 3.95% dps increase over your current dps with str, but with wis you would still see a full 4% increase). Tsar you also missed the crit adornment for secondaries.

[Nastharl]

I suck. Sagacity not brainstorm.