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Where is some love for the Wizard class?
c1k4ml3kc3
Member Posts: 1,257 Arc User
Edit: I just wanted to point out that since the inception of this thread, same like with many threads opened before, there was no any meaningful rework for a Wizard class yet in spite of many Wizard players agreeing for once that the class as a whole needs a rework of Powers and Mechanics or at the very least a barrage of bugfixes. This has been going for quite some time now for no reason at all. Wizard as a class was promised a lot of meaningful and beneficial buffs and upgrades to the gameplay which still haven't come to fruition even though we see mods after mods being released, and even though we've seen so far ninjanerfs to our powers followed by Descriptions on Wizard powers being pushed in the patch notes as if they are brand new, yet they reflect a patch from ages ago. Is it possible that someone really hates Wizards so much that they are fond to make the class completely devoid of any fun and usability?
The Wizard community is still awaiting various bugfixes and alterations to the powers which could, at the very least, be more useful, faster or on-par with other classes that already enjoy such benefits.
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Compare Steal Time and Bane. Which is a better and faster AoE power? How many times can Bane be used?
Compare Steal Time and Smoke Bomb. Whish is a better and faster AoE power? How many procs can Smoke Bomb apply?
Now, Compare two of powers.
Bane + Bane. Extremely fast and superbly potent. Possibly best AoE power in the game. Only downside is Divinity refill in a prolonged fights in Dungeons. For easier content, it is absolutely crazy good. Easiest thing to use in the game.
Smoke Bomb + Path of the Blade. One is do a bit, other is do basically nothing at all, and still deal damage. Rogue right now is a DoT master, more so than Warlock in many scenarios. Bleed + Toxic Blades? Completely wrecking anything in its path.
What can Steal Time do? Hit enemies at the very last proc, meanwhile both Smoke Bomb and Bane killed all enemies to begin with. Bane was cast twice, and Path of the Blade was already cast on Rogue and by the time Smoke Bomb finishes its animation, Rogue is already on the next group of enemies, applying Bleed. Both Paladin and Rogue are naturally fast classes, too. I don't mind the speed of the Rogue, but a tanky Paladin being pals with Speedforce is a bit weird.
Meanwhile, Wizard used Icy Terrain and Steal Time.
Since Chill is bugged, and since Striking Advantage doesn't work without CA, that pretty much means that Icy Terrain is practically useless in AoE combat when compared to both Rogue and Paladin's AoE + DoT potential.
For the maximum damage capacity, that naturally comes to both Paladin and Rogue without much effort, and lingers on the enemies since it's not terrain-based (meaning that enemies mustn't remain on the Icy Terrain for the effect to Apply), this allows more movement, more agility, better organization and easier combat. Meanwhile, Wizard needs to keep the enemies on the Icy Terrain for 6 seconds in order to get full benefit of the Encounter.
6 Seconds.
How many times can Bane be cast in 6 seconds? In 6 Sec Smoke Bomb already destroyed everything.
This means that Icy Terrain can be reasonably used for not more than 1 to 2 chill stacks in fast groups, leaving Steal Time's activation for the later.
Both Striking advantage and Chill do not work, meanwhile all DoTs by both Paladin and Rogue will work to their full capacity with the only downside being - not critting sometimes, due to the way the game works now since MOD 16.
Which is why Wizards need a lot of AoE buffs.
The Wizard community is still awaiting various bugfixes and alterations to the powers which could, at the very least, be more useful, faster or on-par with other classes that already enjoy such benefits.
////
Compare Steal Time and Bane. Which is a better and faster AoE power? How many times can Bane be used?
Compare Steal Time and Smoke Bomb. Whish is a better and faster AoE power? How many procs can Smoke Bomb apply?
Now, Compare two of powers.
Bane + Bane. Extremely fast and superbly potent. Possibly best AoE power in the game. Only downside is Divinity refill in a prolonged fights in Dungeons. For easier content, it is absolutely crazy good. Easiest thing to use in the game.
Smoke Bomb + Path of the Blade. One is do a bit, other is do basically nothing at all, and still deal damage. Rogue right now is a DoT master, more so than Warlock in many scenarios. Bleed + Toxic Blades? Completely wrecking anything in its path.
What can Steal Time do? Hit enemies at the very last proc, meanwhile both Smoke Bomb and Bane killed all enemies to begin with. Bane was cast twice, and Path of the Blade was already cast on Rogue and by the time Smoke Bomb finishes its animation, Rogue is already on the next group of enemies, applying Bleed. Both Paladin and Rogue are naturally fast classes, too. I don't mind the speed of the Rogue, but a tanky Paladin being pals with Speedforce is a bit weird.
Meanwhile, Wizard used Icy Terrain and Steal Time.
Since Chill is bugged, and since Striking Advantage doesn't work without CA, that pretty much means that Icy Terrain is practically useless in AoE combat when compared to both Rogue and Paladin's AoE + DoT potential.
For the maximum damage capacity, that naturally comes to both Paladin and Rogue without much effort, and lingers on the enemies since it's not terrain-based (meaning that enemies mustn't remain on the Icy Terrain for the effect to Apply), this allows more movement, more agility, better organization and easier combat. Meanwhile, Wizard needs to keep the enemies on the Icy Terrain for 6 seconds in order to get full benefit of the Encounter.
6 Seconds.
How many times can Bane be cast in 6 seconds? In 6 Sec Smoke Bomb already destroyed everything.
This means that Icy Terrain can be reasonably used for not more than 1 to 2 chill stacks in fast groups, leaving Steal Time's activation for the later.
Both Striking advantage and Chill do not work, meanwhile all DoTs by both Paladin and Rogue will work to their full capacity with the only downside being - not critting sometimes, due to the way the game works now since MOD 16.
Which is why Wizards need a lot of AoE buffs.
True Neutral
Left the Game due to heavy Damage Control & Missing Spanish Language
Post edited by c1k4ml3kc3 on
5
Comments
Come back when it's been near unusable for 10+ Modules.
How da hell can I stack 10 STACKS of arcane and 6 stack of chill to do some more damage when any other DPS class already killed all the mobs around when i am still casting steal time?xD
Unfortunately, you are right about "be careful". Cryptics have a certain "tendency" to offer players good ideas, but implement them badly. I hope that it won't get worse than it's now.
Because the Wizard class really needs a complete rework. Hopefully they will favor "instant" over "delayed" damage, rework AoE spells and improve the Thaumaturge class, which is now much worse than other classes.
And why should Wizard be "average" as a class? perhaps Wizards are tired of being your "Average" and want to have some fun?
Looks like you got lost here from XBOX ONE forum. Do you even play a Wizard class? Or have been playing it in the past 10+ modules to conclude and offer such a generic, nonconclusive statement? Or have you considered what other Wizard players think or have said, tried to say, to communicate?
And which other class has been "unusable" for 10+ modules? Just out of curiosity, I wonder.
I do think that Wizard class was severely damaged around MOD6 to MOD8, and only once properly buffed in MOD13 which lived shortly. Most of those changes are still rather irreversible as they hit AoE powers the most, specifically DoTs that AoE powers provided. This led to multiproc benefits, which also got nerfed horribly at some point in MOD12-MOD13.
The history of Wizard class was Surviving the changes, rather than Living from the changes. The amount of negative changes to Wizard are so severe, that we got used to playing this class trying to damage control the severity of horrible changes. I don't expect that anyone bar older Wizard players understand this.
MOD16 didn't fix things for a Wizard, instead left a Wizard crippled due to low magnitude encounters.
Of course, I could write a dissertation of Wizard's history playing each and every role without, ever, truly having a stable staple, but so far I do think that you have no real opinion and were just letting some steam off, randomly.
bug report going on 2 months+
However, they also said that Rogue damage is where the sweet spot is located at for the current MOD(s) which makes me to question a decision to buff Rogue DoTs like Toxic Blades, yet nerf Wizard DoTs like Striking Advantage that activates only on CA damage to begin with.
Striking Advantage was ninjanerfed some two months ago btw, not even a legit announcement in the patch notes, and let's not forget even that some of the patch notes were a copy/paste from some earlier MOD and didn't reflect changes to the Wizard at all.
We've made some progress since the days of the "Control Wizard" fiction. I know there are players out there who really, really liked seeing how far they could push stuff around and how long they could make enemies stand still while killing them at a glacial pace, but fast play is an essential part of AoE combat in this game. The best crowd control continues to be murder.
Unfortunately the powers rework was incomplete, and we're stuck with relics like Conduit of Ice and Shard of the Endless Avalanche in our AoE kits, both of which are slow to activate, clunky to employ, and overall even more irrelevant now than they were many Mods ago.
Single-target has very effective options, but spamming encounter keys as quickly as possible doesn't stay engaging for long.
My hope for Cryptic is that they drastically reduce the emphasis on DoTs in AoE builds and change or remove skills and associated mechanics that depend on the target critter staying alive for most of the duration. Wizard has been the Rube Goldberg Machine of AoE combat for a while now, taking unnecessary steps and observing impractical conditions to maximize its damage.
All that being said, Wizard can do all of the content, but it sure doesn't feel particularly fun or fast. Single-target at least is fast if not all that much fun, but AoE is so clunky that it hurts. If they can make ST a bit less monotonous and completely rework AoE to address those issues, I would probably like that.
Contagion - Cleric
Testament - Wizard
Pestilence - Ranger
Dominion - Paladin
NIGHTSWATCH
By the way, the Wizard isn´t bad. Mine is an endgame toon and in 90% of my runs in random quese I´m able to deal the most damage.(That isn´t anything that I´m proud of, but it is a fact) I play an Arcanist with a single target rotation. Sometimes I use icy terrain. In my ToMM farming group I´m mostly under the top 5 DPS and we finish the run in about 14 minutes. There is another Wizard in this Group who deals a lot more Damage then me. A better player, for sure.
All I want to say is, take a breath an be sure, something will be done. If a game makes you unhappy, stop playing it. You have the choice in every second of your live.
Stay safe.
Single target is fine if played properly : don't compare yourself with best broken classes of the moment, even if you are regretting the time you were in that same position.
My Wizard Guide:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JezPmehRjvkrHQKwEJ9tGGesDuekj2mcfKiWxlx56ns/edit?usp=sharing
My Arbiter Cleric guide:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UZGOcQIMLCh5I4lrH63REK5YVsa3Kpk1hOyfic21z8k/edit?usp=sharing
Second, how would you know that Cryptic "knows that too" & that "something will be done" if they aren't replying? Unless you have information you aren't sharing here, you're guessing, & that means nothing. There's another forum thread below this one that was started in August. No replies to that either. You're trying to tell me that in almost 2 months no one could drop a simple reply saying...well, anything? That dog don't hunt. Simple things, like vorpal not proccing from ray of frost & encounter powers glitching after using a daily aren't even being addressed by Cryptic in the forums, so what should lead me to believe larger concerns are being dealt with?
By the way, wizard is bad. I'm also at end game, so no need to talk as if I am unfamiliar with the issues. Just because one crappy play style is somewhat viable if you have bis, doesn't mean it's not a train wreck. Beyond the horribly boring single target play style, its glitchier than the other classes by far, & is a shell of its former self lacking any real purpose outside of boss fights. Besides that, I've a lot of time & money invested into this game. I shouldn't have to give up one of my favored pastimes due to lack of attention from a company that very recently made a big deal about how they were going to be more communicative. Asking for acknowledgement &, hopefully, a plan to deal with this isn't exactly asking for the moon.
Finally, while the game makes me unhappy lately, I'm not going to just give up when there are valid complaints to be made (though if I'm being honest, the thoughts crossed my mind on numerous occasions). That's not how things get fixed.
Btw, there were some twitch live streams a few month ago with one of the devs. Sorry, don´t remember which one.He also said, there will happen something with the wizard class. You can look for it on cryptic twitch chanel, maybe it has been stored.
Look, I'll be first to come here and give an applause when job is well done, but when it comes down to the Wizard and almost a year without any changes whatsoever, you can't come here and just say give them a break. And it's not like there are 1000+ topics asking for this, people GAVE UP asking. That's how bad things are, ppl gave up. Many moved on. And that's a smart thing to do, rather than suffer the gameplay that's ridiculously boring and horribly executed.
And "hard times" - Sure thing, these times are so hard that people, developers in fact, can't work remotely from their home PCs and edit a few numbers in a read-only file
"We can manage ToMM & Zariel runs 7 times a week for the entire alliance, and organize everyone via Discord & whatever other app we can use, but Wizard changes - yea, those...Man, we live in such hard times that there is just NO TIME for Wizard. It's not like it's our job or anything, anyways"
Cryptic devs deserve no apologetics from the playerbase when they make such drastic changes to the classes that serve no purpose, say one thing, and do another. Look at what they made OpHeals to be, like a walking Stone of Health and then long CD. I wrote and spoke openly against that, too, simply because it is a horrible practice to completely destroy everything that was/is fun about a class just because people found a way to use/overuse a specific mechanic or a thing for some time. After all, as a developer, you HAVE to be there to fix it in a timely manner and that is a fact!
And even less do they care for what we do or say, obviously, unless it affects their pockets directly. It is a business, like any other. But that doesn't have to be a business model where only one side is happy (devs & publishers), and other side is left with boiling in the water waiting for things to change.
We've been boiling for quite some time now. People that play Wizards grew impatient. Completely and utterly irrelevant observation and understanding of the topic at hand. : D What were you trying to convey here? "Wizard deals enough damage, which makes it not boring"?
But nevertheless, ty for sharing that. It is irrelevant, but ok. No, that would be a twofold defeatism in practice.
One in the vein "You can't beat the system, just quit the system". Point is that I am part of the system, and so are other Wizard players, and the System is flawed. We want this System to be improved, to be less flawed and to be optimized for all users across the board. This is what this topic also represents.
2nd one would be in realization that Forum serves to speak about such matter, offer both criticism and complaints, as these can improve both the communication and validate the problems that exist within the community. So, NOT speaking openly about this would be like a crime of sorts simply cause you do nothing do improve your already bad state. If you want to see the changes, you have to do something. Simply quitting the game is an option, but that'd be the last resort.
If you dislike topics like this or what I've to say, why don't you instead not write? Follow your advice? : D
Reality is that Wizards worth their 2 cents agree about an overhaul. In spite of our differences, likes and dislikes, that Wizard gameplay is the most boring thing, and needs a total overhaul or at least some quick buffs so that it is TOLERABLE to play this, you bet all you got that this is 100% truth.
My Gameplay revolves around holding a button. Even fishing takes more skill than that. And we're talking ACTION RPG here.
Some powers are still a bit bugged, like Smoke Bomb denying some friendlies powers to crit or activate properly. This I reported back in either MOD2 or MOD3.
If I were to compare to a broken class, I'd choose either Cleric or Barbarian. For Barbarian I'm unsure as it seems reasonably made to be perfectly honest. As for the Cleric, there indeed is a lot of broken overpovered things present, but it does take some skill to execute it properly, which is the reason why I haven't spoken in an ill manner against either Cleric class nor Barbarian, even though I acknowledge the fact that Wizard's damage is way behind what those two can potentially accomplish.
BANE, however, on Paladin class is the fastest and best AoE power in the game. A complete powerhouse in any AoE content, especially paired with a set of Combat Pets. And even more so now that Combat Pets are stronger after the Mount patches.
Wizard has been untouched for a very long time, and many of the bugs prevail. However, Wizard players wouldn't be satisfied with a few bug fixes. Wizard needs an overhaul.
Or,
just go on with trying to change something you have absolutely no influence in... doesn't matter to me. Wish you all the best. Stay safe
This is not a matter of being competitive but rather being useful on-par with other classes that offer better performance and enjoyment.
The fact that ToMM is the reason why Wizard is nerfed simply speaks volumes of why it was a bad choice to begin with.
That left us with no compensation, and we even had ninjanerfs for no apparent reasons.
And it's not like Wizards were overperforming by a vast difference, either. When ToMM came out people were still experimenting and had their eyes on the loot. Most of it could be attributed to the experienced players playing as Wizards, rather than some broken skill.
Wizards were decent before the ToMM-related nerf to the Arcanist path, and only thanks to the AP gain build which worked at a time.
And the Arcane Empowerment bug became worse post 2020.
"So if you can't compete, maybe your build or playstyle is bad."
Here is the epitome of irrelevancy in action simply because all arguments have been used. Hah!
"You open these topics because you suck" - Why don't you just come and say that? Or, if you truly do not care, why do you even write? Do you feel the need to write something in a topic that has nothing to do with you but everything to do with fixing the Wizard bugs and speaking publicly about the pressing issue at hand about Wizard community being unsatisfied with how the Wizard is (not) performing?
"you have absolutely no influence in"
Apathy won't solve issues, I'm afraid. Although we aren't developers, developers might still read a few posts, or CM might send them links to our topics, maybe with enough people commenting and showing their disappointment and apathy will, in fact, change something down the line. If anything, being silent, breaking the communication on the forums, and disregarding everything they (devs) do is usually a path. An easier one, for sure. Can seem to be smarter, too.
But then again, I do my part vocally and publicly showing my discontent in how Wizard was treated all these years for no apparent reason, and I also tackle the thought that M16 would serve to better things up.
So, the only thing you can blame me and others for is
- Wanting Wizard to be Fun to play.
- Wanting to enjoy the game.
It is fair to consider our efforts foolish, we also consider our efforts foolish to an extent, but even so there still remains a bit of hope that someone actually does read this and will do something about the class we enjoy playing. And if they really do that'd be a HUGE improvement game-wise in the community and would be a massive morale boost. But it'd had to be done properly and with some care and love, otherwise there's just no point to continue playing this game at all since M16 would've been a huge lie (which in all likelihood was).
But in Zariel it's another story. Since you have to move all the time, and since dps check phases are much longer, Arcane Empowerment no longer makes the difference and wizard's dps drops. And then you clearly notice that the wizard is behind the others dd classes in boss fights.
Moreover, as you wrote, beyond average dps, wizard powers and gameplay are bad compared to other classes. All evolved and became adapted to post mod 16 game mechanics, except wizard, which seems to be stuck in mod 15 since 4 mods (with even longer cooldowns, since the recovery stat has been removed).
My Wizard Guide:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JezPmehRjvkrHQKwEJ9tGGesDuekj2mcfKiWxlx56ns/edit?usp=sharing
My Arbiter Cleric guide:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1UZGOcQIMLCh5I4lrH63REK5YVsa3Kpk1hOyfic21z8k/edit?usp=sharing
But even without it, a look at our Magnitude for various powers is ridiculously low.
Speaking of stacks they build way too slow and have too little effect in combat. What's the point of a c.w. when basically all bosses are immune to control effects? Freeze? Nope. Hold? Nu-huh. Push? Forget it. Stun? Haha. And the chill stacks only have a mediocre effect on dmg. Same with arcane. Combine they are decent but that forces you into one cookie cutter build that every one uses.
So c.w. (which by its very name should be focused on control) can't lay down spells quick enough to effectively control mobs and bosses are immune and the thaum(which should be a perverbial wrecking ball due to the nature of evocation and magnitudes) can't to sht all four dmg because it has broken mechanics and too few buffs to proc. And what buffs there are to proc all have to be stacks with abysmally low increases unless you have 15 to 20 min to max all of them out. Then they go from abysmally low to just average.
In conclusion I believe the best way to fix this would be to either make each stack average again adding all up to excellent. (Which goes with the theme of being a caster needing the extra time to reach full potential(yes that means wiz will excel in drawn out single combat like tomm, but still only just have an even chance literally every bit of single combat) or get rid of stacks all together and give us good flat rate dmg increase like every other class that doesn't require stacks (bringing the wiz more online with all other classes and not very interesting at all) )
Ofc, we got used to say CW, but there is no point in seeking control at all anymore. Control was obsolete by mod 3 for any AoE content.