I think I sometimes get so hung up on everything I have disliked about the Wizard class and its changes that I forget the things I DO like about it. So this post is for everyone who hasn't (or has?) spent 550+ hours on the Wizard like me. This is for anyone who wants to know what the Wizard is like BEYOND the focus on DPS number comparisons (don't get me wrong, I love to blow stuff up and set things on fire too). This thread is for people who are new and on the fence about the class. This thread is also for other people to tell the devs what they love about the Wizard and share what they got right with the class. So this is the feedback from a level 60 Wizard, with BIS items and far, far too much time spent on this class lol. Let's dive in!
Let's put all the average DPS over time, burst DPS, and number crunching aside. Lord knows if any of you have followed my posts or talked to me about it, sometimes I won't shut up about it. But today reminded me of some of the things I love about the Wizard, and I realized I don't think I've shared them here.
I originally played the Wizard because I enjoyed the class's chill playstyle. Not in the "I want to watch TV while I play" way, just as a dad who sometimes had to step away, or being able to just look around the world and enjoy the scenery. In my opinion, this game is incredibly beautiful, and sometimes being able to sit down and look around was so cool. Being able to be social in groups and having the bandwidth to stop pressing keys and just sort of talk and socialize with people. I feel like that was a core tent pole of the overarching design of this game. Slowed-down pacing, thoughtful actions in combat, social group experience. The Wizard excelled at that. I loved being able to stand up, deliver really powerful, impactful nukes, then sit down, pull out my pipe, and relax. It was relaxing gameplay, with very low APM. I think the only class with slower gameplay than ours was a Cleric.
When I started to see what else the Wizard could do, it was so cool. I enjoyed being able to Knockback, Root, or Root and then Knockback a mob. You could knock back mezzed or stunned mobs. I am so happy they kept the stun on it; it feels really satisfying to knock an enemy off your ally. There was a time when they removed it, and it felt so bad not to have it or to need a wall to do it; there just weren't enough walls in the desert. Not only could I knock back an enemy to save an ally or get it off of me, but I could also just blink away and kite it around a bit. Blink and then turn and root, so cool. Blink is by far and away my favorite spell in the game. It's just fun to blink off things, to blink through mobs, especially after they added that very slight delay that almost makes it look like the enemies are confused* chef's kiss*.
So not only do you bring really satisfying nukes to land on people from a damage perspective (you are definitely going to put up bigger numbers than any other class in the game, even if the DPS falls below average over time). But you bring really FUN CC. You also have a long-lasting AOE snare, which you CAN land on yourself, BUT you can BLINK out of it! Yes, that's right: you can point-blank AOE snare yourself, then peace out and drop that snare. It's a shame this class can both nuke itself (to death easily) and snare itself, but at least you can get out of the snare...
At some point, they added the volley, though. The Wizard used to mix it up in melee to stack Seal of Magic, combining lvl 1 fast-casting nuke with melee to put stacks on an enemy (please don't get rid of Wizard dual wield; it's entirely useless combat-wise but so fun aesthetically and flavor-wise). That later got changed to include the volley mechanic. Overall, the volley mechanic is a lesser part of the gameplay than it used to be, which I like. I didn't pick a Wizard to be a magical archer; I wanted big nukes, not chip-damage strikes. I was very happy to see them move away from that, but in my quest for numbers, I learned some interesting things about volley and the nukes.
As far as damage per mana goes, you can pretty much play the class any way you want. What I mean is, the damage you deal per point of mana is super close. To the point where, if you want to stand up and constantly volley because you like that style or more active gameplay, you can. If you want to sit down for long periods, then stand up and nuke really hard, and then sit back down, you can do that instead. If you want to mix it up between large nukes and medium surge nukes, then you can do that! The numbers as they currently are (at 60) are really close to the point where you can pick the playstyle you want and go forward without really feeling like you're playing inefficiently. Perhaps people don't realize this, but in terms of damage per point of mana spent, the difference between your standard heavy nukes versus volley spam is somewhere between 3-9% (depending on gear, resists, etc.). It's really nice; I don't know if they tuned it that way intentionally, but it's nice knowing that if I want to change up my playstyle, I'm not sacrificing much. And it used to be that way before the rework too. You could, and still can, basically sit for long periods and nuke or stand and volley constantly; it's the player's choice.
I will say the best iteration of the Wizard I ever played was a moment they created accidentally after the rework. The free volley was still on the bar, and Arcane Infusion was changed to Reclaim, and Reclaim had no CD. So it was really cool to use volley and reclaim to cycle up your mana, then unleash nukes, then volley + reclaim to generate damage and gain your mana back by stacking and consuming it. It meant that I could only gain mana that way THROUGH combat, not just sitting outside combat; I had to fight. Which made it fun and engaging. But they eventually removed that and put Reclaim on a 30-sec CD. From a gameplay perspective, THAT was my favorite iteration of the Wizard. But I digress; back to the Wizard at hand today.
Right now, you have WAY more options than any other caster in the game for how you want to deal damage. You can drop a huge Fireball or Iceblast nuke, and let's face it: when people think of the Fantasy class as a Wizard, Fireball is THE spell everyone's mind goes to. If that is a class fantasy you enjoy, then the Wizard delivers. You WILL land crits that make everyone in the group say "Oh my God dude, did that Fireball just crit that mob for 4k!!?"
While the arcane line of spells that increases an enemy's casting speed isn't super impactful, it's there; it's niche, but it's there. The best spells you will find are the lightning ones that interrupt casting. Those are incredibly useful not just for casters but archer mobs too. If you root an archer in the back and keep casting Lightning Surge to interrupt it, you can lock it down while your group fights the rest of the mobs, or knock it farther from the fight and help your group with the others.
You also have a line of debuffs for each element you wield, and it's helpful for others too. I wish these were stacked in pairs or all in one to make it easier to fit on the bar when not using incantations, but you are the master of magic, and it shows in your level: you bring resists to your party as well as debuffs to enemies. You can not only play with the playing field a bit with snares, roots, and knockbacks. You can also increase your party's damage against enemies. On top of debuffing them, you bring a 10% damage increase to all spell damage. This can be impactful in the right groups or useless in others, but it's still helpful overall.
The Wizard has a variety of spells at its disposal, and that's why I think the incantations system (while flawed and needing some polish) is great. I enjoy never having to memorize spells. I enjoy being able to pull out ANY of my damage spells. Start the fight by dispelling all its magic, fire, cold, and electric resistances for the party and me. Start applying stacks with my volley to give everyone 10% increased damage. Roll up my sleeves and cast a big fireball nuke, then finish it off by reclaiming some mana. That also gives everyone in the party 10 minutes of spell haste! Then repeat the cycle. It's also incredibly satisfying to interrupt casters and show mastery over spellcraft by shutting them down with a surge of lightning nukes that keep them from 1-shotting the tanks. It would be nice if the reclaim were faster so it could cycle more quickly. Perhaps lowering the Reclaim CD to 10-15 seconds would feel more satisfying for nuking and regaining mana through that rotation. But being able to use ANY of my nukes at ANY time, along with ANY of my debuffs and buffs, without ever needing to memorize a spell, has been fun.
It DOES require more APM, though. If you want the chill Wizard playstyle, it's still there. You just sacrifice variety and capability. It might mean you don't have all the debuffs on your bar. It might mean that you have to re-memorize your buffs to your bar once in a while. It will mean you have to be selective about which utilities you prepare and bring. The incantation system has a serious flaw, though. There's ZERO reason to cantrip the Glyphs. You cannot use them without a spellbook, and if you have a spare spellbook in the bank... well, then there's not really any reason to worry about cantrips now, is there? It was nicer when you had 4 cantrips you could memorize, and you chose 3 out of 4 glyphs to be selective, OR it made taking Readiness as the go-to thing to pick up at character creation for the ability to have all 4 glyphs + the catalyst to walk around knowing you have access to a lot of spells even on a CR. That's gone now; I hope they bring it back.
BUT the ability to change on the fly is NICE. I can immediately start casting an interrupt nuke, or a spell-casting speed slow arcane nuke. If you want a more active playstyle, you can have it. If you want a slower playstyle for this session, you can have it. You get to choose, and that's really awesome from a game-design perspective. They are trying to satisfy both camps: those who want the slower playstyle Wizard and those who want the faster APM Wizard. And boy, is it fast. You will want to get the glyphs off fast; there is skill in knowing the combinations, and your spell-casting times get compensated once they go off to keep overall casting speed the same, so it's not a trade-off. If your spells seem slower, it's because you're not activating them fast enough.
But I get to pick and choose how I want to play in the group. As a gaming dad of 2, sometimes I need to play with a kid in my lap; being able to do that is nice. When I am free and want to wield the ultimate cosmic powers of the universe and let the buttons fly, it's really fun to get good at the incantation system. Don't get me wrong...the resist buffs need to be consolidated to like 1 or 2...96 button presses to buff 6 people with 4 buffs is just a bit too much. I will always just mem them on my bar instead...
BUT for fun factor, the Wizard IS fun, and you can play it how you want in groups. Not only do you bring damage, but you will bring the ability to save your ass or your group. Leveling 1-60, I died ONCE. One time. I think I nuked myself in a quad kite, to be honest; we're the only class that has to really worry about that (having 1500 life and nuking for 1800 will do that to you). But I was able to save every group (most of the group, anyway) from disaster and a terrible time. I enjoyed being able to bring that level of "let's go into the orc tower, I'll get us out if shit goes sideways" kind of utility. Don't get me wrong, I died a lot post-60; lots of deaths post-60 lol. Dragons hit hard...
That also applies to out of combat! You can get anywhere in the game SO quickly. As a gaming dad, I really appreciate being able to get where I want to go when I have limited time to play. I liked traveling around and using Exodus to get to zone lines and portals to cross continents; it was fantastic. People don't talk about this often enough but when you're killing enemies for a long time and inventories get full, its not the amount of rusty longswords, its the copper folks. That stuff is SO heavy. Being able to just walk off to the side (if it's a safe enough area) and soul bind, portal back to Shaded Dunes, Exodus to the zoneline, run over to the bank and drop off the copper, and then gate back to do that for everyone in the group made me a lot of friends. The portals are way more useful than you think. Yes, this world is not as big as EQ (yet), and yes, a SOW will get you to most of the places you need to go. But you will be so happy to have a Wizard in your group who can pull some tricks like that while your group keeps killing orcs.
It's also a great way to earn cash. Sometimes I would sit in town (because I couldn't be active enough to truly play) and offer portal services to help people with CRs or just for some side money. I would also just portal around to different zones and offer to get people back home from out in the wilds, which they were grateful for because they could exchange some copper for silver with me (for a small conversion fee, of course 😉) and then get taken straight home without a long, arduous walk back to the bank, encumbered and walking slowly.
It's got damage, it's got utility, it's got the ability to move you around the world and get you into and out of places that would normally be either very hard or very time-consuming. It's got the slow playstyle; it's got the fast playstyle. It can solo (not quad kiting; that's still not really that good anymore), but it CAN solo. And nowhere in the original class write-up or the deep dive does it discuss their ability to solo. That whole quad kiting thing was a leftover from EQ. So while I miss the ballet and art of how it used to be, I can respect the devs' decision not to make that a defining trait of the class if that is the route they want to go. There are classes that explicitly say "Can solo well" or "One of the strongest soloers in the roster," and those classes are out there for people. This does not mean you can't pull some shapes and moves to melt faces on your own; it just isn't part of the core identity as much as it used to be before the rework, and that's okay. I have compared soloing giants in Vale of Zintar with a druid, and they both can do it, just at different speeds. I would say the Wizard can solo just as well as the Druid in that circumstance, maybe even better, to be honest. Devs can adjust the balance around that because it is a core defining trait for that class, among others like it, but you can still get stuff done. Especially if you just want to go to older zones and raze enemies to the ground with PBAOE nukes while you laugh at them through your barrier as their feeble attempts to hit you get wasted (don't push it though, you'll get your ass handed to you by a pack of greens if you're not careful lol). The world is still very much a dangerous place, but you're also one of the most dangerous things in it.
I hope this was helpful to anyone who wanted to know what it's like to play the Wizard in the endgame. I hope this helps anyone who was on the fence about playing one. If any of you guys have questions, I'll try to respond. If anyone else wants to talk in the community about how much they love the Wizard and why, then I would encourage you to do so. Let's please use THIS topic, this thread, to be about the things we like; there are enough threads about the things we don't like out there. Let's make sure the devs hear us about what we feel they got right or what's satisfying about the class to play.
TL;DR (Gotta put this in there because despite this being a MUD game, people still just don't like to read lol)
The Wizard has a fun playstyle that can be slow or fast, depending on what you want. The Wizard hits things really hard; big nukes are a core part of the class and shine through it all. The Wizard has great combat utility in the form of root, knockback, and snare. They give casters in the party great benefits in the form of spell haste and increased spell damage. The ports are underrated and super useful. They can single-target kill things solo, just not quad-kite like EQ or the way they used to. Please keep this thread to what people like about the Wizard; there are enough threads about what people don't like.
