Wizard needs help. It is among the worst damage class in the game right now

Fell

croww He also says they are the top when burning, but with the downtimes, wizards will be one of the worst damage dealers.

He sounds reasonably correct. The point though that this thread misses is that, in any list of damage dealers, someone has to best, and someone worst. And that list changes dramatically based on assumptions made on the type of combat. For a steady stream of solo pulls with no downtime between them, wizards will be probably second-worst. For tougher more intense fights with more downtime between them, wizards move up the list.

I'd like to see wizard burst damage increased, and also their AOE spells to be dramatically improved. But not by increasing sustained damage.

Ghost11203

Fell this is not apples to apples, you cannot land a spell on a creature ~ 8 levels higher than you. I had to melee as a wizard to do any damage because 100% of my casts were fully resisted. So my full int wiz had to melee with my pathetic str/dex and not even mac weapon skill to do any damage.

Fell

Ghost11203 this is not apples to apples, you cannot land a spell on a creature ~ 8 levels higher than you.

No one claimed otherwise, which is why I specified LOW reds-- mobs just a level above yellow. There's a hard level cap on spell resists. Should there be? That's an entirely different problem than what we're discussing here.

Nefarius

Fell "The problem is that you're NOT doing tough dungeon crawls, which require a lot of moving around, continual breaking of new areas, and lots more downtime. You're doing what all the grinders who complain about DPS are doing -- strolling up to one camp -- a camp that someone else likely broke already -- plopping down and fighting an endless stream of solo blue-mob pulls." - This is such a strange remark to make to a stranger, it is an appeal to authority in disguise.

"...So many people misinterpret that remark." You play devils advocate and pretend to know the dev's purposes but you ignore glaringly obvious design choices that contradict your point. The group play in this game is designed around mostly stationary camps, this has been stated many times by Shawn, there are even rules in the play nice policy to enforce it. There are classes and races that get specific buffs for the stationary campfire, because it is central to the gameplay in MnM. Wizard is not able to fulfill its role in these groups, and every player who has played wizard for any significant amount of time agrees that this is the case. For you to suggest that there is a hypothetical scenario or future game state where wizards will be effective is just contrarian nonsense - "do tough dungeon crawls" as if that is the solution. Real wizard players are in here trying to give feedback to get the class fixed in the game that exists and you are here detracting from the real issues with the class, which you clearly have never played nor do you understand except in some hypothetical way. The wizard does not need its "burst damage increased" - it needs it's burst tuned to the game that exists so that it is able to fulfill its stated role in the average group.

Fell

Nefarius This is such a strange remark to make to a stranger, it is an appeal to authority in disguise.

It's an appeal to reality. Even ignoring the fact that countless wizards in this thread have explicitly said just what I did, the fact remains that virtually none of the camps in game require effort to reach. Excluding FW (and slightly GTS/GH( you can literally walk up to any camp in game with zero effort. And all the best exp camps generally have rotating-member groups there, meaning you don't even need to break them.

The group play in this game is designed around mostly stationary camps, this has been stated many times by Shawn

LOL, one post ago you said: "the problem is that the devs have stated many times that this is a dungeon crawl focused game"

Do you know the difference between "a crawl" and "stationary"? Let me resolve the dichotomy for you: the design goal is stationary camps that require effort to reach. Make your group, fight your way to your camp, and stay there a while. In fact (and I freely admit I'm speculating here), I believe the reason devs left out COTH from the bag of spells is because they don't want players skipping that crawl. And I'll bet you dollars to doughnuts that the "crawl" aspect is amplified as additional content is added throughout EA.

Nefarius

Fell Arguing semantics now, perfect. At least you can focus on something you seem to understand.

Fell

Nefarius I'm actually arguing pragmatics, not semantics-- and you didn't answer the question.

Nefarius

Fell Clearly my point was that, in the average group, which takes about 5-10 minutes to fight to a camp spot around a named, and then spends the rest of its time, usually hours, pulling trash mobs and named to that campfire, moving when they level up to a different named or a more attractive camp opens, the wizard is ineffective at fulfilling its stated group role.

Your point was "keep moving around fighting tough reds and dont sit by a campfire like a grinder" so that the downtime for the whole group is increased enough to make the wizard effective - which is not how this game works in general since most named are camped permanently, nor how it is designed because of the various buffs that campfires give, nor what wizards are effective at since they can't land spells on reds which makes them even worse in the scenario you presented. The argument that wizard is effective when the game is played outside of the intent of how it should be played, or the reality of how it is played, is contrarian nonsense. Wizard needs to be effective at its role in the average group, and currently (and all the way back since alpha) it is not. There was about a 3 day period where reclaim magic had no cooldown and a wizard could actually fulfill its role, granted that was slightly overtuned, then they undertuned it once again and left it.

SyntaxOmitted

Do not redeem the Fell! DO NOT REDEEM!

Fell

Nefarius So much disinformation.

You realize there's no game law that campfires must be dropped at a named camp, right? Wood is cheap ... when my group crawls, any time we're moving more than 20 minutes (and thus lose the buff) we just drop a fire, refresh, and keep moving.
Wizards can hit reds. They just can't hit HIGH reds. No spellcaster can. No one exp's off mobs 8 levels above them anyway, so why are you even bringing this up?
As you yourself pointed out, "the devs" have expressed dungeon crawling as a design goal. So why claim that's not going to become more prevalent as the game moves from EA to release?

Finally and most importantly -- wizards are not "ineffective" in the average grind group. They're just not as effective as you'd like them to be. With the possible exception of the one class at the very top of the damage chart, every other DPS class in the game is screaming they're broken because they don't do enough damage.

In some situations, wizard are THE HIGHEST DPS in game. Admittedly those situations are rare. But that's the problem you should be addressing. Not trying to turn yourself into an archer that shoots arrows called "fireballs".

Cadveun

Fell The wizard needs to be sitting as much as possible in the current state. He is old and fragile and can only crawl for 20 feet at a time before needing to sit for extended periods of time due to extreme inefficiencies. I don't think you understand how inefficient they are. I have done some pretty extensive "crawls" deep into some places and it's so slow from the inefficiencies that some of the mobs we killed behind us pop back up before we can effectively take down the ones in front of us due to the lag with wizard needing resources back. Wizard is borderline garbage in it's current state....unfortunately, considering it's the only class I would prefer to play.

Fell

Cadveun The wizard is old and fragile and can only crawl for 20 feet at a time before needing to sit for extended periods of time.

It takes a long time to master the arcane arts.

I don't think you understand how inefficient they are.

I've got about 1500 hours of experience grouping with wizards, including leveling one myself briefly. And waiting on them to med up is faster than dying to a tough named because you had no burst damage, or wiping because you couldn't evac out from a 20-mob train. Also, my groups usually have at least 2 casters who are benefiting from the extra 10% damage from the wizard, which definitely adds up over time.

Nefarius

Fell You keep presenting the same straw man argument "trying to turn yourself into an archer that shoots arrows called 'fireballs'" when THATS EXACTLY WHAT THE DEVS DID when they added volley to try to make the no-meditate crowd happy, and it solved no problems.

"Finally and most importantly -- wizards are not "ineffective" in the average grind group." Unfortunately, they are. They cannot effectively do the job of a DPS in an average group, that is the whole point of this thread, and the entire basis of your lack of understanding. Your false dichotomy of either sustained or burst and nothing in between is nothing but a fallacy, because wizard's burst could easily be tuned to the average group. I am not asking for more damage, I am just asking the devs to analyze the wizard in terms of the average group scenario so that they can effectively fulfill the role, instead of being a drag on the group compared to literally any other class they have given a DPS role.

Cadveun Ravenshade is a well respected wizard who has posted thoughtful summaries, data, and solutions in the wizard class discord for a long time, and what they say is true.

Fell

Nefarius "Finally and most importantly -- wizards are not "ineffective" in the average grind group." Unfortunately, they are. They cannot effectively do the job of a DPS in an average group, that is the whole point of this thread,

You're not playing the same game the rest of us are. The purpose of a DPS class is to do damage. Wizards do damage. Quod erat demonstrandum. Plenty of DRUIDS have joined groups in a DPS slot, and a druid does a good 20-25% less damage than a wizard. The argument that "I can't have fun unless I'm doing as much damage as that archer and mage" is beyond banal.

Rangers, rogues, druids ... sometimes tanks These are the classes that struggle to get group invites. Not wizards. There are 8 DPS classes and 4 tank classes ... but your average group needs 3 to 4 times as many damage dealers as it does tanks. Wizards are VERY far "ineffectual", which is why no one hesitates to invite them.

Nefarius I am not asking for more damage,

Come now. At least be honest with yourself, if not with us. It's even worse when EA hasn't even begun yet and you're still here, begging for wizard buffage. If you TRULY thought wizards were ineffective and broken, you'd play a class that has higher sustained damage. The fact is you love the big booms. You just want them bigger.

croww

I still not sure, seems almost like druids Thorns are more damage then wizards total damage when it comes to group play over a few hours playing. People aint asking for bigger crits, they are asking for better DAMAGE/MANA spent. Since its the manabar that decide how much damage you can do, and its the time for the recovery of the mana that beeps wizards over. So the fix might just be that wizards need better mana recovery tools.

I would guess most wizards want to atleast be over the none dps classes in total damage.

Guess we all agree the wizards have the highest burst for around 30 sec. But they also have a downtime for ₇.5 mins for those 30 sec. And that will land them lower damage then 95% of the classes in game.

Once again if the damage for a manabar is 18k and the time to do it is 30 sec, and recover time is 7.5mins. The wizards "damage" aint better then the druids Thorns if nonestop killing greens/blues. @Fell You are one of the few that seems to think thats fair for the ability to burst down 1 mob.

I would say people are asking for more damage, but they ain't asking for more burst. The burst is allready 3 times higher then the other classes. But at the same time the total damage is 5 times lower.

Deathrite

Fell Many of your assertions lack data, and I'm really curious if NWC starts providing more of it whether or not you'd change any of your opinions on any of the class forums you frequent regarding which classes are getting into groups, and what damage curves actually look like across the classes, and what the NWC design team wants those curves to actually look like.

What does burst mean on a timeline?

What would you think if you actually saw analysis of the scenario's you've described, where wizards need to be bursting if you found out they are doing less than you think due to resists?

What about group survival rates with and without wizards. Does Evac matter?

Cadveun

Fell I didn’t say the game was hard
or that i died a lot. I have almost never died in the game minus the initial wyrmsbane train deaths when I was first learning the game. It’s probably the easiest mmo I have played in its current state. Also, that extra 10% damage buff is almost never on the mob due to the reclaim cycle. You volley or flash till 5 then nuke then reclaim. They are only seeing 10% for a very brief amount of time. 10% of 1000 is just 100 extra damage. The wizard is only seeing it for a brief amount of time. 10% is also next to nothing even when you spread it around alittle. (Edit: They just changed that the 10% stays - still next to worthless at 10% but will have to test first.) The spellblade at the level I was at gave a 15 intelligence buff. This allowed my wizard to both do more damage and get mana back faster. This is an actual useful buff. I just read some of the other posts and it’s evident that you don’t know the actual facts or data backing up these issues. The issues are glaring and very easy to see. It’s basic math. Why are you in here this much if you don’t even play wizard? What’s your agenda

Taron

https://forum.monstersandmemories.com/d/1370-rejoice-fellow-wizards

Nefarius

Aaaaand the devs proved the point. They reversed course on reclaim magic, got rid of the cooldown, and made volleys hit 5 times at all ranks. While this wasn't my preferred method to solve the problem, it takes us back to the only time wizard was able to fulfill their group role effectively, so I am happy.

Raybane

Taron The volley change is also a buff to the lower levels as with 5 hits so will it be very strong at level 4. I think 1-3 will be the only painful stage, but it's short enough.

This fixes several things, hopefully, while also avoiding the risk of unbalancing Wizards as it only touches sustained damage.

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