End-All Wizard Problems and Issues Collection [Archive]

Mudfur

07-21-2008, 03:33 PM

7/21/08MudfurLevel 80ABOnslaughtGoals of Post1) To show in a logical fashion the problems with the wizard class in Everquest 2 as of July 21st, 2008.2) To create a forum topic that seeks to discuss problems in a systematic fashion.3) To encompass every problem of the wizard class into one post for devs to read and addresss.StructureFor far too long have I seen posts on forums that attempt to address problems but fall short because of the inclusion of opinions and whining.This posts seeks to eliminate that by:1) Relying on facts, data, and the accounts of others as opposed to opinions, flaming, and personal experience2) Displaying how, through pure evidence, the problems with the wizard class.Information organization and presentation are highly important to resolving issues. Because everybody gathers different data, the only way to solve problems is to share this data with others in a respectful way.If you wish to contribute, as I'm sure there are many who will, please discard any feelings associated with wizard's issues. Disregard the nay-sayers who make off-hand remarks with no evidence to back themselves up. If those devoted to fixing the problems spend their time presenting data and experiences instead of complaining about not being "super uber" then may be something might actually be done.Lastly, these arguments are largely geared towards raiding.Short Hand: Don't complain, present data and evidence, share accounts of parses, don't listen to nay-sayer, don't refer to group/solo issuesDataAll data for the origins of this posts can be found at (and frankly it's all you need to know):1) Daray's New Guide to Maximizing Raid DPS as a Wizard<a rel="nofollow" href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=418277" target="_blank">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=418277</a>2) The New Wizard Bug/Issue List<a rel="nofollow" href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=422785" target="_blank">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=422785</a>This will be expanded upon.ArgumentsIf anybody wishes to contest anything stated in my arguments, please take the time to read through both data links above to know the problems with wizards and how our DPS works in raids. Statements such as: "You suck, wizards are awesome" does not help anybody or wizards as a whole. The data and facts are proof, logical, and applicable to everybody.Argument 1: Assuming optimum cast order and equilavent gear, wizards should be the top DPS in the game. Why?Wizards1) Low hp (mage)2) Low mitigation (mage)3) Lack of utility (refer to data #1 link)4) High DPS, require troubador/illusionist + time compression/tandem to have a chance at topping parse.Here is a comparison to other classes:Swashbucklers, Brigands, Assassins, Rangers1) Medium hp (scout)2) Medium mitigation (scout chain)3) Medium utility with debuffs (more magic resists debuffs than wizards) and poisons (stat debuff, slow, mitigation)4) High DPS near/above wizardEnchanters1) Low hp (mage)2) Low mitgation (mage)3) Very high utility (power regen, mezz, hate transfer, time compression, melee buffs)4) High DPS approaching wizardsProblem: Wizards, although still good DPS, require more support than DPS scouts and enchanters and the difference in their DPS is largely minute compared to the vast advantages of the utility that these other classes provide. It's hard to compare the usefulness of #'s in DPS and how utility factors in, but a good way to look at it is this:A raid would have a hard time without enchanters and scouts.A raid would do fine without wizards or warlocks, replacing them with more scouts.Solution: Increase Wizard (and Warlock) spell damage significantly to the point that wizards are looked at, no questions, as the top DPS in the game. With equivalent gear and both using optimum order of CA and spells, a wizard should be doing at least 25% more DPS then any other class in the game if not more. This would put the wizard in a position of great need for their DPS capacity because they offer virtually no debuffs/buffs/utility to help the raid, have low HP, low mitigation, and lower survival capacities.Before you quote this in a reply and harp on this solution remember that there is an one-way-best optimum number-crunched way to max DPS and as of now, wizards are not the top DPS class. The numbers are proof, not your angry opinion.Argument 2:Problem: Resist rates need SERIOUS work. This problem affects all spell casting classes but wizards take a HUGE hit. If Bolt of Ice or Fission are resisted our DPS is terminally affected especially because of the power cost of these spells (450 power for bolt of ice, 550 for fission) and the need to try and stack these spells with magic debuffs on the target. In PvP this is worse whereas even with upward of 550-600 casting skills and M1 spells my spells are resisted half the time and the damage is significantly reduced, and this is on players with average instance gear.Solution: While melee have the problem of missing, parries, and riposte, their attacks are much quicker than wizards who's spells take much longer to cast. The best solution to this problem is to give wizards the ability to reduce fire and ice resists significantly more and make the spell unresistable. Another solution avenue would be to correlate spell casting ability level with resist rates and healing ability. This would increase the desire for gear and buffers who increase their groups casting skills (paladin's AA buff would be more useful as would warlock skill buffs).Currently, wizards have one dot that reduces heat/cold by 1300 at adept 3 which has an impact on damage levels but it's not as significant as enchanters or brigands ability to debuff magic resists. Argument 3:Although minor, teleportation spells should be examined:Wizards/Warlocks:CommonlandsAntonicaGreater FaydarkKylong PlainsFury/WardenCommonlandsAntonicaGreater FaydarkSteamfront MountainsButcherblock MountainsKylong PlainsKunzar JungleProblem: There are wizard spires up and running in every zone that teleports to Kingdom of Sky. It doesn't make sense, lore wise, why wizards are not capable of teleporting to places that have active wizard spires. One massive utility that wizards do have is teleportation and our selection of locations is extremely limited in comparison to fury/wardens (which are needed on raids anyways).Solution: Make wizards more useful in their teleportation by providing more zones capable reaching via wizard/warlock teleportation. If Wizards could teleport to Fens, Jarsath (closer to Skyfire), and many more of the oldworld zones then, although minor, their usefulness would increase among other players.Response StructureThere must be a structure to our responses if anybody in development is going to listen to us. They don't have the time to read through 1,000 of posts of unorganized bickering that is all contradicted each other with angry opinions. Therefore, here is an easy to use template so we can structure all of our responses for devs to read.1) State character name, level, server, guild2) State your problem with wizard class3) Provide data4) Offer possible solution5) Offer your thanks to others who provided problems/good solutionsEasy as pie!Lastly, look at the assassin forums to see that there is nothing about the problems that wizards face. The fact that there are so many people on the wizard forums with problems indicates something is going on that isn't right...Thanks Mythal and Daray for the bugs/issue and max raid dps guide!

Marie-Ange Jourdelune

07-28-2008, 05:01 PM

First problems: Melee and Spell resist don't function has the same. Spell mitigation is tied to Resist while damage mitigation is tied to mitigation. So, when spell resist are raised, the spell damage are lowered. If the avoidance of a mob is raise, the mitigation of the mob is not raised.Solution: well.. redo your engine to have 2 different mechaninc acting has the same with different value. Give mob spell mitigation that don'T depend on spell resists. Give casters a new spell debuff mitigations, like a T2 dispatch for spells mitigation for the most broken conjurer out there.Second problems: Spell debuff are lame. 2k at max. While mitigation debuff are pretty much more effective than this. So, to get the same debuff level of the spell versus the melee, every classes need to uses their spell debuff and recycle. Bid deal, almost every classes of Eq2 get spell debuff, but only a fraction of them uses them (magic users). So, counting on rangers, swashy, healers to land their spell debuff is out of whack. So, for a Wizard to compete, he need everybody of his raid to compete against the meleer. :S Because while the scout land their spell debuff, they don'T DPS ... or debuff for melee.Solution: Having a 10k elemental debuff could help wizard to mitigate the slacker... but it would give wizards the same problems with brigand. Use for raid to debuff, need for utility, can't get high DPS (unless stated his brokens has now). So let's remove all the spell debuff on the none spell users classes and raise accordly the debuff of the casters classes.Third problems: Wizard can only progress their DPS with SPells. While scout get auto-attack and poisons. Solution: Give us something other than spells to raise our DPS. It could be something like enchantment weaving. Wizard can weave temporary (for a zone) enchantment that do "independant" damage.Fourth problems: Our only truly dedicated utility is the Trouby. But actually, trouby can JC any meleer for the best of the DPS purpose. Trouby use JC on the best parser without thinking about our so slow reuse timer.Solution: Put JC for hostile spells only.Fifth problems: Frigid gift, Surge of ro: The two spells description had been changed. Now they work on any spell type. But Surge of ro trigger a lot more on fire spell than the other... If that so... Iceshape/Fireshape are not used anymore and a AA of that power (on top of the line) need to be something else.Solution: Update our AA tree to reflect the changes.Sixth problems: Long casting time and Long Reuse. With the fastests pace of the game compare to LU13, the value of our big spells are too high to compete with others toon. It's easier for chanters/summoner to used procs, because they cast fast and get reuse timer refresh faster. Even, when the auto-attack of some scouts is like 5k DPS (with proper buff, gear and debuff), our spells seems obsoleted pretty fast. A typical fight in a instance is resume to the used of 3 to 4 spells, and i have seen it to 2-3. (and in that scenario, be hated by the tank because to compete we need to start with Bolt of Ice on pull and getting aggro)Solution: A 30% reduction of our spell casting time and reuse timer for each spells should be applied to reflect the changed of the game since Gu13, but more, to be inline with all those doubled attack crits that bring scout auto-attack to beat our spells chains boost buy our gear, buff, debuff.Seventh problems: Itemization seems wrong. While melee items give nice big numbers, like +4 double attack, + 4 crits and a procs, casters gear seems to give +2 of this, or +4 of that, but rarely combine +4 and +4 and a procs. Solution: When new items are put into the game, made them approved by an internal comittee, where each of those devs should play at high end raiding with a classes of each archetype. That way, if unbalance like RoK would try to go in Release, it could be caught before and be asked to be on par and fair for all.Eight problems: Hate threshold is not equal for each toon. Sorcerer will peel aggro on tank at a certain amount of damage done to the mob. Our Big boom advantage fade away with their timer, so we peel, use standard spell, then use big hitter than peel again. It's harder to compete with Predator, because their damage are more evenly distributed. So they can parse like 7K before peeling, but for the same raid setup, the wizard will definitaly peel at 5k. Sorcerer peel more than any other toon, even if they do less damage. Solution: Give us a hate transfert that is signifiant like the Predators.Anyway, they took like 3 years to removed the bug in Storming tempest. Not sure, if they will any time to invest in a sane DPS competitive game again.Marie-Ange