So after playing the wizard class for a couple of years I have a few suggestions / comments about its playstyle and some issues that are going to hinder them as they progress through t12, t13, etc. This is filled with grammar and spelling mistakes.
Section 1: Mana / Arcane Echo
Anyone who has ever played a wizard knows that long drawn out fights with no ability to regain mana besides harvests and clickies leads to a wizard that is OOM and doing 200 dps. Conversely, any melee dps is not bound by the same rules as they actively do respectable dps with their class skills. Since wizards are a pure dps class with no real support skills, I have been mulling around some ideas to make Wizards be able to extend better without absolutely destroying their DPS.
If you are aware, the 5 mana nuke that wizards get does approximately 500 damage non crit. With double Taesh bracers, this is more or less 1000 damage over 3.7 + 2.5 (GCD) = 6.2 sec --> Add in a +40% modifier to take into account crits, and wizards are left at slightly over 200 DPS when completely OOM. When Taesh bracers are obselete again, or nerfed, or just outright removed, this will again be an almost unnoticeable amount of damage.
Arcane Echo was put in to allow a wizard to extend slightly, but the only way to capitalize on the effect is by rotating in 5 mana nukes which cuts your active DPS by about 40%. Currently, the system of using a 5 mana nuke to regain some mana between nukes does help wizards extend slightly, but only because they are doing significantly less damage. All together a single tick of echo nets ~5% of the 25% recourse, which is more or less nothing. I think that bumping up the wizard baseline by reducing the spell cast time of this skill to 2 sec, and making it "consume" the Arcane Echo effect would not significantly hinder wizard DPS (-20% loss) while giving them the ability to sustain longer fights. This would not make wizards DPS increase, just slightly more intuitive and fun to play without starving for mana in exp groups where you dont AoE, or on raids that require hard burst at portions without runnnig us completely dry.
I understand that forbidden harvest helps with this in multiple situations; however, it is rather limited in a raid scenario or groups because you are constantly spending 4% mana with the hope of "sniping" an 8% recourse.
Section 2: Bracers
I really didnt want to post about these but here we go:
We all know that Taesh bracers are powerful. They essentially net 48 dps per, non crit, per bracer on moon comet. With runic 2, they are more or less 100 dps per. Are they powerful? Yes. Are they overpowered? Maybe.
The wizard class revolves around randomness, and these bracers bring a little more of a baseline damage increase to the class. If you take into account the majority of other bracers that come out of the tiers, they are not even half as strong. Looking at ranger bracers, the most used once (blades, class, tearing), all net about ~25 dps if the char is spamming exposure. For Wiz bracers (where mana is obviously our means of dps) these bracers net approximately the same type of DPS (from t10 up) and each are about 20-25 dps total per bracer. I think that taesh bracers were the lazy way to put better damage bracers in the game. Just using simple math, you can plan out a bracer that would be an increase to these but not overpowered. Taesh bracers essentially broke scaling on these items, and that moving forward, an item that is not equivalent or better is a significant nerf to the class.
As well, 5 mana nukes also benefit from those, sooo... if you upgrade your bracers, 5 mana nukes become almost useless and a "stop" to dps if you are rotating them in.
Section 3: Current parsing vs other classes
Wizard vs. other classes is actually rather even. There are some fights where wizards do significantly more damage and the opposite is also true. Where wizards currently stand, in my eyes, is a respectable damage base, good burst potential, and I am overall happy with how the class is performing.
Section 3: Clickies
There are a few items in game that are wearable that break up the monotony of wizard dpsing and provide substantial increase to the wizard baseline. These are: A Burning Chunk, Corona, Galaxy Etched Bone-
If you're like me, I stopped using the DoT glove clickies a while ago because swapping in gear is literally cancer and it made me want to die. These three clickies together harmonize almost perfectly with wizard spell casting and make a smooth an enjoyable dps increase. My DPS hinges substantially on these items, and removing them outright would hinder my ability to keep up with other pure DPS classes.
I would think that these items do not need a nerf, but having alternatives at higher tiers would make progression more interesting while maintaining the active portion of wizard DPS. Spamming only moon comet sucks.
Section 4: +elemental damage
Seriously, I hate these more than anything- spending 10k for an aug for marginal damage increase is terrible. As well, with the prospect of having new damage spells, all the plat that characters threw at these augs is obselete; Overall, this makes gear sets and swaps annoying as hell, since if you want to min-max your sinking a ton of platinum into augs. New characters that are already buying tomes and leveling and building a charm shouldn't have to spend more money on these augs. I understand its another money sink, but it really serves as more of an obstacle.
I dont have a neat suggestion for this other than making them lore and increasing the +damage substiantially. If these were to be removed when new spells came out OR replaced with +mod augs, I think this would function better.
Section 5: Melee
Seriously, where are the wizard daggers?
Section 6: Summary
1. Revise arcane echo, make 5 mana nukes consume the echo effect and reduce the cast time
2. Nerf taesh bracers by 20% and make new bracers as good as old taesh bracers or better. OR have neat effects like spell haste procs
3. Keep Corona and Chunk, but add other alternatives in progression.
4. Get rid of +ele damage augs or reduce the cost.
5. WTB wizard stabbing.
Section 1: Mana / Arcane Echo
Anyone who has ever played a wizard knows that long drawn out fights with no ability to regain mana besides harvests and clickies leads to a wizard that is OOM and doing 200 dps. Conversely, any melee dps is not bound by the same rules as they actively do respectable dps with their class skills. Since wizards are a pure dps class with no real support skills, I have been mulling around some ideas to make Wizards be able to extend better without absolutely destroying their DPS.
If you are aware, the 5 mana nuke that wizards get does approximately 500 damage non crit. With double Taesh bracers, this is more or less 1000 damage over 3.7 + 2.5 (GCD) = 6.2 sec --> Add in a +40% modifier to take into account crits, and wizards are left at slightly over 200 DPS when completely OOM. When Taesh bracers are obselete again, or nerfed, or just outright removed, this will again be an almost unnoticeable amount of damage.
Arcane Echo was put in to allow a wizard to extend slightly, but the only way to capitalize on the effect is by rotating in 5 mana nukes which cuts your active DPS by about 40%. Currently, the system of using a 5 mana nuke to regain some mana between nukes does help wizards extend slightly, but only because they are doing significantly less damage. All together a single tick of echo nets ~5% of the 25% recourse, which is more or less nothing. I think that bumping up the wizard baseline by reducing the spell cast time of this skill to 2 sec, and making it "consume" the Arcane Echo effect would not significantly hinder wizard DPS (-20% loss) while giving them the ability to sustain longer fights. This would not make wizards DPS increase, just slightly more intuitive and fun to play without starving for mana in exp groups where you dont AoE, or on raids that require hard burst at portions without runnnig us completely dry.
I understand that forbidden harvest helps with this in multiple situations; however, it is rather limited in a raid scenario or groups because you are constantly spending 4% mana with the hope of "sniping" an 8% recourse.
Section 2: Bracers
I really didnt want to post about these but here we go:
We all know that Taesh bracers are powerful. They essentially net 48 dps per, non crit, per bracer on moon comet. With runic 2, they are more or less 100 dps per. Are they powerful? Yes. Are they overpowered? Maybe.
The wizard class revolves around randomness, and these bracers bring a little more of a baseline damage increase to the class. If you take into account the majority of other bracers that come out of the tiers, they are not even half as strong. Looking at ranger bracers, the most used once (blades, class, tearing), all net about ~25 dps if the char is spamming exposure. For Wiz bracers (where mana is obviously our means of dps) these bracers net approximately the same type of DPS (from t10 up) and each are about 20-25 dps total per bracer. I think that taesh bracers were the lazy way to put better damage bracers in the game. Just using simple math, you can plan out a bracer that would be an increase to these but not overpowered. Taesh bracers essentially broke scaling on these items, and that moving forward, an item that is not equivalent or better is a significant nerf to the class.
As well, 5 mana nukes also benefit from those, sooo... if you upgrade your bracers, 5 mana nukes become almost useless and a "stop" to dps if you are rotating them in.
Section 3: Current parsing vs other classes
Wizard vs. other classes is actually rather even. There are some fights where wizards do significantly more damage and the opposite is also true. Where wizards currently stand, in my eyes, is a respectable damage base, good burst potential, and I am overall happy with how the class is performing.
Section 3: Clickies
There are a few items in game that are wearable that break up the monotony of wizard dpsing and provide substantial increase to the wizard baseline. These are: A Burning Chunk, Corona, Galaxy Etched Bone-
If you're like me, I stopped using the DoT glove clickies a while ago because swapping in gear is literally cancer and it made me want to die. These three clickies together harmonize almost perfectly with wizard spell casting and make a smooth an enjoyable dps increase. My DPS hinges substantially on these items, and removing them outright would hinder my ability to keep up with other pure DPS classes.
I would think that these items do not need a nerf, but having alternatives at higher tiers would make progression more interesting while maintaining the active portion of wizard DPS. Spamming only moon comet sucks.
Section 4: +elemental damage
Seriously, I hate these more than anything- spending 10k for an aug for marginal damage increase is terrible. As well, with the prospect of having new damage spells, all the plat that characters threw at these augs is obselete; Overall, this makes gear sets and swaps annoying as hell, since if you want to min-max your sinking a ton of platinum into augs. New characters that are already buying tomes and leveling and building a charm shouldn't have to spend more money on these augs. I understand its another money sink, but it really serves as more of an obstacle.
I dont have a neat suggestion for this other than making them lore and increasing the +damage substiantially. If these were to be removed when new spells came out OR replaced with +mod augs, I think this would function better.
Section 5: Melee
Seriously, where are the wizard daggers?
Section 6: Summary
1. Revise arcane echo, make 5 mana nukes consume the echo effect and reduce the cast time
2. Nerf taesh bracers by 20% and make new bracers as good as old taesh bracers or better. OR have neat effects like spell haste procs
3. Keep Corona and Chunk, but add other alternatives in progression.
4. Get rid of +ele damage augs or reduce the cost.
5. WTB wizard stabbing.
Last edited:
