Wizard Prestige

[Piropiro]

daray wrote:

Xelgad wrote:

I doubt the numbers are right where we want them, but that basically sounds like it's working properly.  This is the AE line afterall!

The good news is that we've got the left lines for both Sorcerers working a lot better internally, including huge improvements to the Flames of Velious bubble.

Regarding building up triggers of Frozen Solid, it really depends on what the content looks like, and I hope you are taking that into account - generally it is single target with small windows of AE adds that die rather fast, and it would be more realistic to be able to build the increments somewhat efficiently before the adds spawn (and I guess this point is equally applicable to warlocks).

Glad you are looking at the left-side though

I'd agree. the overall rate is just slow to me no matter how u look at it. i'd say 50% should be a min. personally i'd still like to see it at 100% i'd be happy with 75%. But yeah, 50% imo is a good "balance" amount...i just want more hehe. you also have to factor in the abilities that clear your charges. so a super slow rate on singles is almost like not even having prestige points. It needs to be balanced for singles, but still geared towards aoes.

[Bevz]

Today's patch notes make me sad

-

Wizard

Velium Chill modifies Blast of Devastation instead of Fusion.

I agree that  insant casting fusion was owerpowered. But I really enjoyed  its faster casting speed.

After all this years  watching fusion's casting bar slooowly crawls to its end. It was one of the best moments in wizards new prestige.

Please bring back  fusion.  Perhaps make it 2.5 - 3 seconds base casting time at max rank. 

Dont change this prestige entirely, balance it better if needed!

Blast of Devastation isnt even a cold based spell, making it being affected by Velium Chill is strange =

[MeitsMe]

wow really f that 

[MeitsMe]

well the left side now is interesting

few things : 

- Incineration increments not showing up

i understand its a spell&proc but we need to be able to see increments for Incineration just like we can for Frozen Solid so we can know when faster manaburn reuse it active

all it does is refresh the 16s spell in the maintained spells window which wont let you know how many increment you have

- Mystical Heat (/Heal)

the reuse for manaburn sure is nice but not sure how useful it will be at hard drain fights , might be nice to improve the heal for a bit more or reduce tick from 3s to 2s cause it seems we are loosing a lot of ticks when it re apply 

- Hellfire 

lol still too weak , need heavier balls or replace it with a nuke and set new reuse speed 

nice changes and all but i still cant see loosing eici for this crap

even with half reuse on manaburn assuming you can get power regn back and keep it for next one , it wont be as good as eici 

[NG23985_01]

Here is my latest feedback in light of recent changes.Frozen Solid increments still build up too slowly on single target and Frozen Rain still deals unimpressive damage. Given that Wizards are so weak on single target, this spell should have its damage doubled from ~1.5m to ~3m. It takes roughly a full minute of fighting single target to charge up to 60 increments which is too slow. Changing Velium Chill from making Fusion cast instantly at 60 increments to Blast of Devastation is a very depressing change. BoD is mostly only useful on AE stuff, but Fusion is our hardest hitting spell, and is even worth using on single targets. This is excluding Fiery Blast & Manaburn because they're gimmicky.Incineration & Hellfire are doing even less DPS now than they did before the changes, but the other changes to the line should even things out. Overall I am still not impressed with the left side. Flames of Velious doing more damage is nice, but only when the target is at a certain health threshhold? Wizards already have far too much reliance on combat conditions, we don't need more. The health requirements should be completely removed. We don't need conditional damage, we need CONSISTENT damage. Are any other classes given damage spells which only work if conditions are right? I don't think so. Incineration is a shorter duration now and it is much harder to keep its increments built up. The shortened reuse time on Manaburn is nice in theory but there are 2 huge flaws with it. The first flaw is the fact that there are plenty of power draining encounters out there which render manaburn all but useless for that fight. The second flaw is that power is relatively hard to fill back up. With the super-short reuse time, I know for a fact that I won't be filled back up to use it again in time. See below suggestions for fixes to both of these flaws. I'm not impressed with Fire Chains. It only did 1.7k dps for me during testing. Apply it across my group and it is still pretty unimpressive. Instead of giving us a group damage proc, give us something much more powerful for our personal damage.In regards to my feedback in a previous post about positioning, I guess I have to apologize because I didn't really say what I meant very clearly. Yes Wizards are dependant on positioning, but for me it is usually good enough just to stand close. The scout folks also have to be behind, and that's what I meant when I said positioning for them was worse. I'm sorry, I should have been more clear. I can usually get Fusion & BoD to hit, although not as many targets as they should. The "cone" damage area of these spells is just far too small. I would love to see better balance among the DPS classes. Wizards, Warlocks, Assassins and Rangers should be competing ONLY with each other. I don't get mad when the ranger or assassin in my guild do a little bit more damage than me. On the other hand my blood boils when a Beastlord or T2 dps class (Summoners) do more damage than me. The flaw with the Wizard class is as I mentioned before: too much of our damage is conditional and requires combat situations to align in just the perfect way. In my guild, I'm about 30-70k dps behind our Assassin & Ranger on single target, but all of us are up to 100-300k dps behind our Summoners. Summoners are Tier 2, they should never ever in a freaking million years be doing more damage than Wizard, Warlock, Assassin or Ranger.Mentin says it well with the idea that Wizards have lots of spells to juggle in combat. We would do very well being balanced by having our existing spells improved instead of being given even more spells. My guild runs 3 summoners and 1 sorcerer (me), and they've been bugging me to switch to a support class once the expansion launches because we can never get enough bards or enchanters. This illustrates a critical design flaw in the Wizard class when we're being passed over for lesser tier DPS classes. Summoners are able to give the raid tons more useful buffs, debuffs, and other stuff than Sorcerers are, and yet they do more damage too! Why would anybody want a Sorcerer? We are very clearly broken and we need immediate attention to fix our weak state.I am having a hard time believing that I'm the only one who liked Ether Flow. Is everybody really satisfied with its replacement? My guild doesn't consistently have 2 coercers, and there are tons of encounters with power drains. We really struggle on these encounters sometimes. I told some of my guild mates that Wizards were getting Ether Flow and the response was universal excitement - we knew we would have an easier time on those power drain fights because I'd be able to keep my group's healer going a needed. I am well aware that feeding power is not my role, but still it would have been nice to be able to do it in emergency situations. I use Mana Intromission on healers sometimes during these power drain fights and I know for a fact that I have single handedly prevented numerous raid wipes because of it. Ether Flow would have been a lifesaver with these power draining fights, but alas people complained and we got Arcane Tyrant instead. Do people really like Arcane Tyrant? It parses 2k dps for me, and for the whole group that would probably be 16k. (6 people + 2 pets *2k) Is 16k group dps really more useful than the potential for a 10%ish group power feed every 10 seconds? I just don't think it is. Arcane Tyrant is labeled "Prestige Mastery" - and for such a high and mighty name, I am not impressed with it at all. Also I don't like that it is going to give the summoners double the DPS that it is going to give me. Pets should be forbidden from triggering damage procs that are not specifically cast on them, single-target style. Peace of Mind has a 6 character target limit, presumably to accomplish just this - but somehow it applies to the pets anyway. Other damage procs don't have a target limit to how many people they can apply to, as far as I am aware.Loldawg, I completely disagree with your claim that Wizards outparse equal summoners. I struggle to hit 325-350k on single target but the Necro in my guild launches right up to 600k from the very start of the fight and our main Conjuror is at 400-425k. I don't know where you get your information, but it is very different from the game as I am seeing it. Summoners double-dip from damage procs, and the Prestige stuff that adds extra ticks to their DoTs cause them to double-dip ability modifier also. The ability mod double-dip gives Necros a ton more than it gives to Conjurors, but it is still there. Just think - where I've got 7k ability modifier, the Necro & Conj in my guild have 14k. It is unbelievably unfair. Necro's first 10 prestige points nearly double all of the damage from their primary spells. I just cannot compete with all of these overpowered advantages. The damage on all 16 of my primary damage spells could be doubled and I'd still only just barely be able to compete with Necro DPS.For Xelgad: Wizard's class description says we are supposed to excel at single-target damage. This is why I made my Wizard. Why has Wizard been allowed to become so weak on single target damage? Why are you forcing us to choose between single target (left side) and AE (right side)? I do not think it is right to force Wizards to choose between single target (left side) damage and AE (right side) damage. We should get a mix of both, but retaining an edge on Single Target in order to maintain class balance. Forcing us to choose only amplifies our weaknesses relative to other classes who are capable of doing good damage in all situations. This is especially true since only the right side is really worth choosing because the left side is really weak. Are any other classes forced to choose between massive AE damage (right side) and weak single target damage (left side) like Wizard? I don't think any are - I think the other DPS classes are versatile and can do good damage in all situations. Why do you force Wizard to be weak at one or the other? Given the state of the game and the new prestige abilities, I feel that Wizard is going to slip even further behind other DPS clases on single target than we already are. If my guild allows me to continue to play my Wizard, I fully expect to slip down to #7 or #8 on the parse on single target - on a class who is supposed to be #1-2. It is unbelievably unfair.Also for Xelgad: Wizards need serious help for single target damage. This is supposed to be our specialty but we are in fact very weak in this area. I have some suggestions to improve (although not necessary completely fix) our weak single target damage.Add a 1-trigger death preventer to Mail of Frost (Wiz) & Nullmail (Warlock). Possibly increase the base reuse time to 5-10 minutes to compensate for the increased usefulness. Pet classes can death prevent their pets in order to guarantee their DPS remains high - letting us do the same once in a while would help out a lot. Wizards are squishy and yet must stand close in order to do DPS. The result is that we tend to die more than most other classes. Add a second damage hit to E'Ci's Frozen Wrath that only strikes one target and deals 1/3rd the damage of the primary hit of the spell. This would enable E'Ci's to be a full replacement for Ice Comet for single-target without having a significant impact on our AE dps.While Fiery Blast is active, the Wizard can cast while moving, is immune to stun, stifle, interrupt, mezz, fear, root, snare, and "cannot cast detrimental spells" debuffs.From the Shadows AAs: Enhance: Flames of Velious should add a 3rd hit to the spell at rank 5. Since it does fire & cold damage already, the 3rd hit could do magic type damage.Change Protoflame from a garbage pet spell into a moderate sized nuke with moderate reuse time - perhaps 400k damage, 1s cast, and 20s reuse.Change Aurora from a useless mezz spell to a large nuke with a long reuse time, maybe 1.5m damage, 1-2s cast, 60-90s reuse.Storming Tempest is a DoT that should have 7 ticks if you do the math with the spell's tick interval and duration. Instead it only has 6 ticks, and has been this way for as long as I can remember. Fix the missing 7th tick.Give us overcap casting speed to our slower spells: Ball of Fire (1.5s->1s), Ice Comet/E'ci's (2s->1.5s), Fusion (2.5s->1.5s), Blast of Devastation (1.5s->1s), Storm of Lightning (1.5s->0.5s), Glacial Wind (2s->1.5s). This would go a long way to improving our DPS too.Manaburn: TO enable this spell to be used even during power drain fights, change it to calculate its damage based on our total power instead of current power. Add more power buffs to the game to enhance the spell's damage. I see Necros with 90k hp (due to temp & permanent buffs) for their Lifeburns but I can never really get above 70k power for Manaburn due to the fact that there are fewer buffs for power. Enable Manaburn to crit, or increase the damage ratio from 4:1 to 5:1.A targeted (E'ci's style) Fusion & BoD would be very nice and would help to return us to the state of being a true ranged DPS class instead of a melee-ranged class. Also, remove the ranged requirement on Thunderclap from the Heroic AAs.Modify Ro's Blade to enable it to proc on Ranged hits so it can be used on Rangers & mages for Spell Weapons, then convert the DoT to a DD and increase the base damage by 30% or something. Right now it procs only on melee weapon hits and the DoT proc overwrites itself and is laughably weak. You could give Warlock's Grasp of Bertox the same treatment, although i think the damage it does is acceptable as-is.Revamp our Sorcerer tree in the same manner that you did the Summoner tree in GU61. (Many of their outdated, useless things were updated to better reflect modern game mechanics.) My suggestions here: Change Static Discharge into a better nuke, massively increase its damage, or replace it with something new that will enhance DPS. Change Deflecting Staff to make spells 1% per rank harder to resist. Put the Parry chance taken from Deflecting Staff and add it to Kinetic Evasion. Change Brainstorm to add 4% (rank 10) pre-Potency damage, or else just increase it from current 4% to 15-20% potency. Tack some spell weapon haste/multi/flurry/aoe chance/weapon damage bonus/autoattack multiplier in there somewhere. Give us new or change existing Familiars summoned by the starter AA. All 3 of the familiars are useless now because of stat caps. I suggest giving a 5% crit bonus familiar, a 5% potency familiar, a ability modifier familiar (713 mod at 95), and a 2% spell doubleattack familiar - adjust those numbers as needed for balance.

[slippery]

What? ...

[inzewood]

minus the fact you loose e'ci, the 75s cd on mb is really fun

[MeitsMe]

inzewood wrote:

minus the fact you loose e'ci, the 75s cd on mb is really fun

nope . eici will be better on zone zide and most named fights 

if by fun you mean cast mb with half power pull then yea a lot of fun

[Mentin]

I think the summoners had to whine for 2-3 years before Sony listened and upgraded their raid performance. Of course they then got even more than what they asked for.

Oh well, maybe next expansion then.

[Temptrix]

I liked the Prestige more when it was first introduced.

The changes that have occured since beta opened have made the prestige scrap metal instead of the sports car they used to be.

Hopefully, I get to test the current changes in a raid soon and provide better feedback.

[Fendaria]

Xelgad wrote:

The good news is that we've got the left lines for both Sorcerers working a lot better internally, including huge improvements to the Flames of Velious bubble.

I am still quite dissapointed, the changes are no where as good as the cold side still.

Changes: FoV now has a 10 sec recast and the fire part also hits at the 75, 50, 25 for extra damage.  Roughly looking at the numbers FoV hits roughly as hard as Ice Comet at 25% (maybe a little softer).

Problems:

I still don't like the 75/50/25 mechanism.

Lowing the reuse...well its nice when the mobs is under 25% but otherwise lowering the reuse on the spell doesn't do anything for DPS at all.  Your lowering the reuse on a spell which isn't efficent to cast, we are going to cast other things.

The first heat hit is harder than the following ones, just look at the tool tip.

Wizards AA Elemental surprise gives us extra damage when the mob is over 80% health.  Warlocks are the ones who do extra damage at under 30% (Agonizing Death).  So FoV will be better slightly better inherently for them than us at 25%.

On heroics, this will do so very very little.  Mobs just don't live under 25% very long.  The reuse of 10s doesn't help with this at all.  I know no one cares about heroics anymore, but I'd like to think something could be done which would also be sorta useful for heroics.

Also:

Still no increase on the chance to recast RoD on BoF.  The problem with BoF is, its not a top spell.  We don't cast it every time its up.  Its pretty far down the list.

Warlocks have theirs tied to PlagueBringer, as spell that, in single target fights (and this is the single target side), they will always be casting when its up.  Plus theirs resets Focus'd casting.

Incinerate still only triggers on heat spells.

0.3% power looks really sad if it is supposed to help refuel for another manaburn.  I hope at the least the decimal was put in the wrong spot.  Also, you really need to lower the casting time on manaburn too.

Fendaria

[Mysterre]

Did anyone test the endline Surge of Ro prestige? I pretty much never cast this spell to begin with and the description doesn't sound like it would make me change my mind about it, so I'm interested in how much more damage it actually does. It looks like it was put in there because they either wanted us start casting some of our useless spells by giving them slightly more DPS, or there was nothing else they could think of to put there?  Well how about that targeted Blast and Fusion idea?  Hell, I would even be ok if it was modified into a Firestorm type spell centered on myself.  I am willing to continue to have to joust in; the cones just need to be axed already.  We already have enough dependency more than any other DPS class on other raiders and on blind fate for our FB's and MB's to not fail or be gimped, at the very least we could do with less exacting requirements for facing, which sometimes will fail us even if we are not at fault.  This change wouldn't cause these spells to do more maximum damage, but it would allow them to be used to maximum efficiency more often.  I will take that over a Surge of Ro enhancement any day of the week.

[daray]

Right Side (AE?)

• You currently have Frozen Rain and Frozen Detonation consuming all Frozen Solid increments at *any* increment number. The "Consumes all increments of Frozen Solid" needs to occur only when we are dealing the 60 increment hit, otherwise the way the whole thing works is a little silly.

• I still think we need to be seeing Frozen Solid proc a lot more vs single target content, just because of the way AE content is typically implemented in this game (small windows of low-hp swarm-type adds).

• I still feel the 60 increment hits ought to be higher in damage, given it is a full Frozen Solid increment consumption.

• Velium Chill now reduces the cast time on two spell options that people just won't be all that thrilled about, because, bottom line, these choices arent really going to be making much of a practical difference. You need to pick 1 or 2 appealing "high priority" choices here (and this goes for both sorcerers), especially if we need Frozen Solid at 60 increments to do so.

Originally, fusion was a more interesting choice, given the current difficulties in using that spell (stupidly narrow cone, things are never where they were between starting and finishing the cast - which just increases the gap between the avg players and the better players). ~~ I suppose this could also be alleviated by changing the 'basic' fusion to match BoD with a (base) 10m, 180 degree frontal, but I fear that is beyond the scope of what Xelgad is working on here.

• Change Frozen Solid to be a passive buff so that increments can be maintained between fights so as not to disadvantage the slower guilds (or at the very least have Frozen Solid last a lot longer).

Left Side (ST?)

• Frozen Burst is better than it was, but you are still using the wrong spell. Change it to Ball of Fire, remove the % health thresholds for the extra hits (then rebalance if needed by reducing the number of extra hits, or the damage of the extra hits). Using Ball of Fire for 'Frozen Burst' would also tie in a lot better with 'Disintegrating Fire'.

• I'd prefer to see an increase in the duration of the Incineration proc if you insist on allowing Incineration to only trigger off heat-based spells (from 16s to closer to 30s)

• Mystical Heat needs to restore more power. It also should reduce the base Manaburn cast time (currently 6s), as well as the recast.

• Fire Chains' damage is pretty low, given it isn't even a 100% proc (5.0 times per minute off spell hits / combat arts). With 1 rank, I had it averaging around 6k per hit. With all 3 ranks, it was averaging at 18k. At my estimate, this proc will only come in at around 2-3k extdps per group member (I guess potentially double that for pet classes).

• Hellfire is still decent. Maybe could use a very slighly bump in the damage after sitting here and parsing it for a while. However I just noticed that it doesn't proc Incineration, when it probably should, given it is a heat spell!

Middle Stuff:

• On the whole, both Arcane Surge and Arcane Tyrant need increases to their damage.

• Damage aside, Arcane Tyrant is just so unimaginative for what I suppose is currently meant to be the prestige tree overall endline. What gives?

Display:

• Sorry to go on about this, but the increment tracking / information needs to be easily accessible to people. This has been highlighted in both sorcerer threads, but there are some decent ideas in the warlock one, so I won't repeat them here.

• Incineration still randomly splits the initial hit number into 2 entries (one fixed, one with a spread).

• Since you changed Ro's power to act as a seperate multiplier instead of potency, you probably should include "before modifications" in the tooltip.

• Mystical Heat appears to add Mystical Heal to Incineration - not sure if that was just a typo.

• Fire Chains has pretty weird proc condition wording (On a hostile spell hit ... 5.0 times per minute ... This ability can trigger on combat arts as well).

[Piropiro]

daray wrote:

Right Side (AE?)

• You currently have Frozen Rain and Frozen Detonation consuming all Frozen Solid increments at *any* increment number. The "Consumes all increments of Frozen Solid" needs to occur only when we are dealing the 60 increment hit, otherwise the way the whole thing works is a little silly.

• I still think we need to be seeing Frozen Solid proc a lot more vs single target content, just because of the way AE content is typically implemented in this game (small windows of low-hp swarm-type adds).

• I still feel the 60 increment hits ought to be higher in damage, given it is a full Frozen Solid increment consumption.

+1 to consumption only at 60 for these abilties in prestige trees. +100 to a higher proc rate. Would also like clarification on the conditions of proc. On Beta i've open aoe'd 8 mobs and saw 0 procs from this. Is it on spell cast or is it a calculation on the landing of spell. Also for a 33% proc rate, its really easy to produce 6-8 mob hits with no procs. I really dont think the rate is even 33% unless it is on spell cast and if so that REALLY needs to be changed.

Left Side (ST?)

• Frozen Burst is better than it was, but you are still using the wrong spell. Change it to Ball of Fire, remove the % health thresholds for the extra hits (then rebalance if needed by reducing the number of extra hits, or the damage of the extra hits). Using Ball of Fire for 'Frozen Burst' would also tie in a lot better with 'Disintegrating Fire'.

This is a great idea, which if i remember properly was also stated when Prestige's came out the first time. Warlocks also said it should be Distortion for theirs. Make it Ball of fire, and Distortion, and balance out how to do it accordingly per class. This is another example as to why "equal" tree's are a horrible idea and dont work. As stated previously warlocks will gain more. We have different rotations and the frequency for flames of velious is going to be higher for a warlock than it will a wizard. Furthermore with the damage bonus of under 30% vs the above 80%, it creates an obvious balance issue. PLEASE stop the cookie cutter forumulas of prestige abilities, and look at them as a class by class basis, and balance the benefits afterwards, not giving everybody identical stuff that is inheritantly not balancable.

Middle Stuff:

• Damage aside, Arcane Tyrant is just so unimaginative for what I suppose is currently meant to be the prestige tree overall endline. What gives?

If these lines are supposed to be "endline" type things, this would be great spots to create unique benefits that fix broken issues of classes. There is a very large pool of longposted issues for every class in game. You have a great opportunity to use those two middle abilities to address a couple issues for each class. If there is not time to do this during beta you could at least make a start on some of them and make it an ongoing task. I dont know if its possible for you to pick any class in game, and not get more than 2 suggestions of long outdated or broken aspects of a class. Mind you some of these changes need to be made into the abilities themselves (i.e. dark aggravation being a pure personal proc like the assassin one is) But yeah, you have a great opportunity to do some real good with what in a lot of classes cases are horrible slots. You already did this with the fury Primal Fury option in there. More of stuff like that, Less heres a crapy dmg proc that procs 50% of the time.

Display:

• Sorry to go on about this, but the increment tracking / information needs to be easily accessible to people. This has been highlighted in both sorcerer threads, but there are some decent ideas in the warlock one, so I won't repeat them here.

+1

[Brodderick Jones]

Velium Chill should be changed . . . First I am not sure why fusion was taken away given that we cant always use it bec of the range limitation and hailstorm IS NOT a true AE spell so it doesnt belong in the AE line imo.  Futhermore, BoD has the same range limitation (altho a little better) as Fusion.

I am asking that you if you replace BoD with ECi that way we can get the full benefit of spending 3 prestige points in that ability.  Also, replace Hailstorm with Glacial Wind since that is more of an AE spell than Hailstorm.

[daray]

Prestige Mastery

The middle bubble at the bottom of the Prestige tree now costs two points.

Lol at Arcane Tyrant now costing 2 points - it wasn't even worth the 1 point it cost before.

Wizard

Arcane Surge's damage has been halved.

Really? because the sub-par damage it was doing before was too much? Here, how about changing it to a single target proc, if it gets an even marginally respectable amount of damage in return ...

Some of these latest changes, and the disregard of existing issues (many of which have been outlined), just leave me completely baffled - and the disappointing thing is, that we will probably be stuck with this indefinitely once it goes live.

[Piropiro]

awww have hope daray, one day somebody may notice that when everybody in a class says the same thing, that they might be onto something!

[Bevz]

Bring back Velium Chill to the initial state. Or at least return Fusion (not reduced to 0 casting time, 2 seconds at max rank would be fine) this spell requires skill to use, so it deserves some love! Also Arcane Tyrant was barely worth 1 prestige point... Arcane Surge's damage has been halved, so more trash damage procs... what about something creative? another barely noticable damage proc is just super boring... and wont help wizards at all.

[tevorx]

Why would anyone play a Wizard as it stands now?

Definitely not to be competetive as tier 1 DPS. In equal gear / optimal group setups We will be blown away by Beastlords, Summoners, and Predators.

I understand the expansion is being released in a week and the new prestige was clearly NOT given enough time to be properly tested and adjusted but don't penalize us for that.

Wizards really needs to be balanced before the changes go live.

There is already more than enough constructive criticism in this thread on the new prestige abilities from players who have been playing the class for years to help point you in the right direction as to what changes this class needs.

I want to re-iterate some of the classes current major dis-advantages.

Manaburn: It's simply not that great anymore, it tends to only make up around 3-4% of my parse on average under ideal circumstances. It's often not able to be used to it's full potential when it's up or casting it is avoided altogether due to lack of power / power drain fights.

Fiery Blast: Way too many variables for failure with this spell (stifle, stun, detriments, bug issues with Fusion/BoD cones not hitting targets they should be hitting) The stars literally have to align to use this to it's full potential.

Fusion: On the fights you can even use it.. it can be very difficult to use. A lot of end game fights require mages to be at max range meaning it can't be used at all, on the fights where we can joust in and out the range of fusion is extremely unforgiving and even when you do everything right you still have a good chance at "No targets in range." due to some bugged hit boxes.

Suggestions:

Mana Burn:

-Change the way damage is calculated? Something based off of our maximum power pool as opposed to power currently available

-Increase the damage per power point from 4 to something more appropriate?

Fiery Blast:

-Something that makes us immune to stifle/stun/interrupt/etc while fiery blast is up?

-Something that increases the duration of fiery blast?

-Something that increases the damage modifier of fiery blast?

Fusion:

-Something that converts the spell into one that functions similiarly to ECI's Frozen Wraith? as was suggested by many others already in this thread

-Change the cone radius to something more forgiving like Blast of Devastation (Doesn't have to hit more than 3 targets just fix the radius)

[Shotneedle]

tevorx wrote:

Why would anyone play a Wizard as it stands now?

Definitely not to be competetive as tier 1 DPS. In equal gear / optimal group setups We will be blown away by Beastlords, Summoners, and Predators.

Then you're playing wrong. Koncept does fine in our raid. More than fine.

[tevorx]

Why would anyone play a Wizard as it stands now?

Definitely not to be competetive as tier 1 DPS. In equal gear / optimal group setups We will be blown away by Beastlords, Summoners, and Predators.

Then you're playing wrong. Koncept does fine in our raid. More than fine.

I know Koncept currently does fine along with many other skilled wizards, in that quote I was refering to the new prestige additions..

Let's ask Koncept how he feels about the new prestige changes as they currently stand? and his ability to continue competing with you on the parse after the changes go live.

I'm sure you already know how he feels and also why it probably is not a coincidence that this wizard thread is the longest and most active.

[MeitsMe]

Buffrat@Antonia Bayle wrote:

tevorx wrote:

Why would anyone play a Wizard as it stands now?

Definitely not to be competetive as tier 1 DPS. In equal gear / optimal group setups We will be blown away by Beastlords, Summoners, and Predators.

Then you're playing wrong. Koncept does fine in our raid. More than fine.

so just because 1~3 top end game wizards ww do fine it means the class is perfect ?

ofcourse whoever isnt on equi/rev is playing wrong and not as good 

most players dont have that much play time as daray / koncept who been doing drunder for god knows how long and know every situation in every single pull 

there really arent a lot of wizards and most raids either have 1 or most likely none , but 1 if not 2 locks / 2 summouners are very common to find

wizard is a fun class to play been my main since i started playing , but theres just too many ways to f up , like stated many times b4 :

cant use fusion our best spell on fights most times - im not a scout i dont want to sit on the mob a$$ for 2.5 second casting spell that will prob make me die or fail to hit all 3 targets 

fb can go wrong in too many ways - i want a dev to raid and have fun seeing that spell fail so hard few times in a raid

mb cant be used often with full power pool - im a noob and mine only doing 2~2.7 mil max , and cant use it often , was a nice try with half reuse on left side of prestige but still at the end its better sticking with eici 

daray wrote:

Originally, fusion was a more interesting choice, given the current difficulties in using that spell (stupidly narrow cone, things are never where they were between starting and finishing the cast - which just increases the gap between the avg players and the better players). ~~ I suppose this could also be alleviated by changing the 'basic' fusion to match BoD with a (base) 10m, 180 degree frontal, but I fear that is beyond the scope of what Xelgad is working on here.

"which just increases the gap between the avg players and the better players" 

thats true enough and having that insta casting might have closed the gap a tiny bit , it sure would be nice to not fail cast that spell so much 

tbh i could care less about the sucky new prestige that being changed every day atm and would like to see a fix to the stated class problems in this topic in the near future 

[Mysterre]

MeitsMe wrote:

Buffrat@Antonia Bayle wrote:

tevorx wrote:

Why would anyone play a Wizard as it stands now?

Definitely not to be competetive as tier 1 DPS. In equal gear / optimal group setups We will be blown away by Beastlords, Summoners, and Predators.

Then you're playing wrong. Koncept does fine in our raid. More than fine.

so just because 1~3 top end game wizards ww do fine it means the class is perfect ?

ofcourse whoever isnt on equi/rev is playing wrong and not as good

most players dont have that much play time as daray / koncept who been doing drunder for god knows how long and know every situation in every single pull

there really arent a lot of wizards and most raids either have 1 or most likely none , but 1 if not 2 locks / 2 summouners are very common to find

Well both Koncept and Daray are in here pointing out serious problems with the Wizard class so it's not just an issue limited to the top 1-3 end game wizards. We all know the issues, they've all been pointed out already, more than once by more than one wizard. But not only did we not get worthwhile prestige abilities..... one of our lackluster abilities (an endline no less) just got nerfed? Did I read that right? A spell that does little damage and isn't worth casting, is now going to do even less damage? This almost feels like a giant middle finger stuck right in our faces. Why???

[le Rêveur]

Whining warlocks, old summoners whines etc... wizards still have the ability to rule parses, it takes effort, it takes a good group and good buffers, it actually takes much more effort than having a warlock or bl parse really well. Am i the only one to notice how random wizards perform badly ? now compare numbers to random locks and bl... 

Parsing well on wiz now not only require skill, but it also requires much more luck / teamwork than it was before. fusion reset (is a myth!) ? stiffle not cured fast enough in the middle of fiery blast ? no bolster for mb ? illy casting timewarp for himself or before mobs are even placed / packed ? resists ? (try play w/o troub now)

So many things that can screw us up and that we have no control over. It's much easier to play a lock or bl, get buffed and pwn stuff tbh... and not to rely that heavily on other players. 

I've been playing wiz since 2004. I've been raiding from t5 till now with it, and i play consistently (trying to improve myself all the time, barely ever slack).

My dps goes up and down some raids, most the time within top 2, one raid i'm about 500k zw, the next one i'm at 300k for the very same zone. What changed ? groups (peoples not classes). Sucks...

Do the devs really intended to make us such a buff / team dependant class ?

[MeitsMe]

Mysterre wrote:

Well both Koncept and Daray are in here pointing out serious problems with the Wizard class so it's not just an issue limited to the top 1-3 end game wizards. We all know the issues, they've all been pointed out already, more than once by more than one wizard. But not only did we not get worthwhile prestige abilities..... one of our lackluster abilities (an endline no less) just got nerfed? Did I read that right? A spell that does little damage and isn't worth casting, is now going to do even less damage? This almost feels like a giant middle finger stuck right in our faces. Why???

yup didnt try to diss any wizards just saying others may think wizards are easy and somehow have advantage over locks or something when its really not the case

[Shotneedle]

Mysterre wrote:

MeitsMe wrote:

Buffrat@Antonia Bayle wrote:

tevorx wrote:

Why would anyone play a Wizard as it stands now?

Definitely not to be competetive as tier 1 DPS. In equal gear / optimal group setups We will be blown away by Beastlords, Summoners, and Predators.

Then you're playing wrong. Koncept does fine in our raid. More than fine.

so just because 1~3 top end game wizards ww do fine it means the class is perfect ?

ofcourse whoever isnt on equi/rev is playing wrong and not as good

most players dont have that much play time as daray / koncept who been doing drunder for god knows how long and know every situation in every single pull

there really arent a lot of wizards and most raids either have 1 or most likely none , but 1 if not 2 locks / 2 summouners are very common to find

Well both Koncept and Daray are in here pointing out serious problems with the Wizard class so it's not just an issue limited to the top 1-3 end game wizards. We all know the issues, they've all been pointed out already, more than once by more than one wizard. But not only did we not get worthwhile prestige abilities..... one of our lackluster abilities (an endline no less) just got nerfed? Did I read that right? A spell that does little damage and isn't worth casting, is now going to do even less damage? This almost feels like a giant middle finger stuck right in our faces. Why???

Wizards may have issues, every class has issues, but saying wizards aren't going to be competitive t1 dps even with these issues makes me lol.

[Enotirab]

le Rêveur wrote:

Parsing well on wiz now not only require skill, but it also requires much more luck / teamwork than it was before. fusion reset (is a myth!) ? stiffle not cured fast enough in the middle of fiery blast ? no bolster for mb ? illy casting timewarp for himself or before mobs are even placed / packed ? resists ? (try play w/o troub now)

So many things that can screw us up and that we have no control over. It's much easier to play a lock or bl, get buffed and pwn stuff tbh... and not to rely that heavily on other players. 

I've been playing wiz since 2004. I've been raiding from t5 till now with it, and i play consistently (trying to improve myself all the time, barely ever slack).

My dps goes up and down some raids, most the time within top 2, one raid i'm about 500k zw, the next one i'm at 300k for the very same zone. What changed ? groups (peoples not classes). Sucks...

Do the devs really intended to make us such a buff / team dependant class ?

Do you really think these are problems everyone doesn't experience.  Warlocks need UT just to be competitive; how is that for being buff dependent?  We also can be stiffled at key moments (like in the middle of focused casting) and must time things with TW and other temps just like a wizard.  All the things you're describing are frustrations that are shared with most if not all classes.

[Konc3pt]

I'm not trying to go off topic, but if you're having trouble knowing if you're in range or not to use fusion / triple thunderclap etc, hotbar Brock's Thermal Shocker. Its range is 10m and lights up when you're in range. And you can use Catalogue Creature for judging 15m, iirc. 

Back on topic now. Frozen Burst really needs to be changed. It honestly should be Ball of Fire with no health restrictions, and balanced with ways that Daray suggested. 

The middle endline as it stands is hardly worth the 2 points. I'd personally, as well as others, would like to see fusion, blast of devastation, and firestorm changed into targeted AE's with this endline (like E'ci). There's really no reason for having sorcs play with a scout mentality just to compete. 

Fire Chain's damage is pretty meh. It should do more, although it is a rather boring mechanic. 

[daray]

Konc3pt wrote:

The middle endline as it stands is hardly worth the 2 points. I'd personally, as well as others, would like to see fusion, blast of devastation, and firestorm changed into targeted AE's with this endline (like E'ci). There's really no reason for having sorcs play with a scout mentality just to compete.

Yeah, I backed this before too.

A change like this obviously won't be a direct dps increase for the class (for those wizards that can cope with pretending to be scouts), but what it does do, is offer rather desirable flexibility. It would certainly help close the gap between the better wizards and those who struggle more (and there is quite a gap resulting from these positioning requirements).

I imagine warlocks would probably appreciate a similar endline too.

EDIT:

Actually, since you are intent on making the middle-bottom (endline) some kind of group benefit for all classes, I would be equally happy with the above replacing "Arcane Surge", such that:

• Rank 1 = Turns Firestorm into a (35m range) targeted blue AE (same radius)
• Rank 2 = Turns Blast of Devastation into a (35m range) targeted blue AE (same radius)
• Rank 3 = Turns Fusion into a (35m range) targeted blue AE

* Perhaps even granted as alternate abilities sharing the same cooldown.

(would also be cool to have the base Fusion spell changed to a 10m radius / 180 degree frontal just because those restrictions are now way out of line compared to when it was first introduced)

[disappointed]

Buffrat@Antonia Bayle wrote:

tevorx wrote:

Why would anyone play a Wizard as it stands now?

Definitely not to be competetive as tier 1 DPS. In equal gear / optimal group setups We will be blown away by Beastlords, Summoners, and Predators.

Then you're playing wrong. Koncept does fine in our raid. More than fine.

this is such a dumb post it got to be a troll.

Manaburn: It's simply not that great anymore, it tends to only make up around 3-4% of my parse on average under ideal circumstances. It's often not able to be used to it's full potential when it's up or casting it is avoided altogether due to lack of power / power drain fights.

Fiery Blast: Way too many variables for failure with this spell (stifle, stun, detriments, bug issues with Fusion/BoD cones not hitting targets they should be hitting) The stars literally have to align to use this to it's full potential.

Fusion: On the fights you can even use it.. it can be very difficult to use. A lot of end game fights require mages to be at max range meaning it can't be used at all, on the fights where we can joust in and out the range of fusion is extremely unforgiving and even when you do everything right you still have a good chance at "No targets in range." due to some bugged hit boxes.

this is not a cry for being op its right on spot. even though having a raid with the best geared players allover the servers might negate some problems the problems still remain.