Shields

MissxCleric - Sanctuary

Hey hey,

I got a lvl 27 Wizard and I was just wondering if it's useful to lvl Pyroshell, Glacial Embrace and Stone Barrier.
Thanks!

Reknown_Wolf - Harshlands

Stone Barrier is a Must in pvp, the other 2 are optional

WalderBlue - Dreamweaver

I would say Stone Barrier is not too useful in PvE early on. (maxed out it boosts Phys. Res. by 100%, but as wizzies don't have high res. anyway it won't boost much)
Because you're on a PvE server, I would advise you get get Ice if you want. You won't really be using earth.

HarmOwnie - Dreamweaver

I would consider Stone Barrier and Glacial Embrace equally important because

you will need Stone Barrier to reduce the phys dmg of some AOE Bosses in Instances like TT
and Glacial Embrace is just nice because of the mp regen for normal grinding

pyroshell is nice for tanking some magical bosses but it's not as important as the other 2

greetz harm0wnie

HexOmega - Dreamweaver

when i was in lvl70~80 i was looking forward to the demon version of glacial shield (more MP recovery)
only to run around in stone barrier 100% of the time
cause i dont give a cake on mana use anymore >_>




your spirit will always be extremely limited, until mid-lvl90

the Fire Shield is the most useless skill we have, alongside with Emberstorm

keep it at 1

Glacial Embrace is higher MP recovery, if you have a pure build, a decent weapon and kite mobs, nothing should be able to hit you
so why not get the extra MP recovery for quests


inside instances the Stone Barrier is mostly better xd (worth to lvlup, you need it when ur lvl-40+ish)





edit: most stuff that can be tanked with pyroshell can be tanked with glacial embrace too, and u save mana xd
only great uses i see is Warsong Fire Path and Wulord, high lvl stuff

Galox - Heavens Tear

What the...

Stone Barrier Level 10 is an absolute MUST, no matter WHAT server you are on. 100% Extra Physical Defence, or an Extra 10MP per second? Mana don't even matter past Level 75, the pots work out at about 600 coins each if you manufacture from Tokens, and you'll be using one of them every few minutes.

Try AoE grinding without Stone Barrier; it just won't work. Yes, I AoE grind with The Dragon's Breath. With Stone Barrier and Full Buffs, I can handle 10 "Chief Assassin" monsters easily without ticking my charm or using Genie (Yeah, I should get Expel one of these days ) and I use two Level 75 HP Food at the most. Doing anything remotely like that without Stone Barrier would be impossible. (Pfft, unless your smart and get Expel, but you still run the risk of dieing)

Max Stone Barrier first. Always, in my opinion. What about the "Archer" type monsters; you could possibly Kite them, but it would be less effective.

Imo, Stone Barrier is one of our best skills. Like, easily in the top 3. Max Water Barrier second, it's useful sometimes for the MP regen, or while grinding in the swamp (Quite a few monsters use ranged Water attacks there, I think the "Vampiric Minions" and "Wretched Hydrolace" do at least, and they are excellent grind targets. Fire barrier has it's uses, too. The HP regen may be small, and unnoticeable when out of Meditation, but it does help, even if its effectiveness is small. I know a lot of people don't grind like they used to, but for Wizards, there is little other way to make a decent amount of Coin in-game. Solo Grinding "Foxwing Supreme" in your 60's will make you a decent amount of coin, mostly in "Flexible Sinew" DQ Item, and you'll get a bit of EXP along the way.

Just my Opinions on things,
~Galox

MissxCleric - Sanctuary

Thanks all
I don't like PvP. ;p
I think I'll keep Pyroshell lvl 1, maybe till I'm really high lvl. I'm probably gonna lvl Glacial Embrace first of all 3 then and when I got spirit left over, I'm gonna lvl Stone Barrier.
My Wiz is lvl 29 now and I learned Dragon's Breath, Wellspring Quaff and Fire Mastery. I also lvled Divine Pyrogram, and then I was almost running out of spirit, but I know Aqua and Earthen Spirit are good skills too, so Idk what to do, cuz at lvl 30 I can lvl Pyrogram and at lvl 31 Stone Rain. ;p
I should max Pyrogram asap right? And what about Stone Rain?

Galox - Heavens Tear

I recommend keeping Stone Barrier at least the same level as your Glacial Embrace.

For the Masteries, I levelled Earth firs and then Water mainly because of Sandstorm and Glacial Snare. The difference 20% adds on to Pyrogram isn't as huge as a 20% damage increase for Sandstorm. However, Pyrogram and Gush are your two most spammed skills, so it makes sense to level all Masteries. I also say max Pyrogram, but always level Gush over Pyrogram if Spirit or Coin is limited.

Stone Rain is your first "Nuke"; well, it's sort of a semi-nuke. I personally maxed it after Gush, Pyrogram and Stone Barrier. However, I've found it looses much of it's use after you get Sandstorm and Glacial Snare. They have slightly longer channeling times, but it's quite small, and SS/GS do far more damage than Stone Rain does. Until Sandstorm though, Stone Rain still does a fair bit of damage.

Toliman - Raging Tide

MissxCleric - Sanctuary wrote: »

Thanks all
I don't like PvP. ;p
I think I'll keep Pyroshell lvl 1, maybe till I'm really high lvl. I'm probably gonna lvl Glacial Embrace first of all 3 then and when I got spirit left over, I'm gonna lvl Stone Barrier.
My Wiz is lvl 29 now and I learned Dragon's Breath, Wellspring Quaff and Fire Mastery. I also lvled Divine Pyrogram, and then I was almost running out of spirit, but I know Aqua and Earthen Spirit are good skills too, so Idk what to do, cuz at lvl 30 I can lvl Pyrogram and at lvl 31 Stone Rain. ;p
I should max Pyrogram asap right? And what about Stone Rain?

At January 1 I had restart of my Wizard at Raging Tide server.

I can say, that:
1. Pyrogram and Gush are good attack spells. They have low channeling time and same (or little less, depending from weapon) dps as high level attack spells.
2. Divine Pyrogram can be leveled later (after Pyrogram).

Dtone - Sanctuary wrote: »

Divine Pyrogram - A very slow casting version of Pyrogram

3. Wizards have good Fire defense, so if we will multiply it using Pyroshell by, for example 1,5 or more, we will have even more, significantly more defense and less damage from fire attacks of mobs and bosses.

Edit->
For example, you have fire defense 46%, using Pyroshell of 5th level you will have 55% fire defense (nonlinear progression). Mobs (or boss) will hit your hero less by 9%. <-Edit

4. Dragon's Breath can be useful if you have good physical defense. And it can be achieved at middle and high levels only. Same for Stone Barrier:

For example, you have physical defense 17%, using Stone Barrier of 5th level you will have 23% physical defense (nonlinear progression). Mobs (or boss) will hit your hero very hard still.

5. Stone Rain must be leveled at same priority as Pyrogram and Gush. This is attack spell of different element (Earth).

MissxCleric - Sanctuary

Okie, so I should lvl Stone Rain, but should I lvl it till I get SS and/or GS, because Galox said SS and GS do more damage.
And about Divine Pyrogram, Dtone might say it's just a slower channeling version of Pyrogram, but Divine Pyrogram does more damage than normal Pyrogram, so I thought it might be a good skill to start with too? Atleast till I get SS and GS. And I got the same question for Divine Pyrogram, should I lvl it till I get SS and GS, or should I max it?

Ursa - Dreamweaver

DP was my main opener until I got GS to 10.
I don't know why ppl don't usually use it, but I loved it. In time as you level it kinda' loses its efectiveness and you get better spells with better damage/debuffs than DP.
The fact that is a projectile spell (has a travel time and it's not an instant cast like gush) makes a DP-Gush-P combo quite a nice DPS one.
I haven't found GS to be as good until I got it to lvl 10. Yeah, the slow debuff is great, but under lvl 10 there are quite good chances to fail and the dmg isn't particularily great. PLUS I HATED the long cooldown time. Every mob I ever killed for same lvl quest was dead in 3 hits (unless Mag res or increase life), and I never had time for GS to cool down to be the opener for next mob. So i just ignore it for a really, really long time.
Keep your mastery lvl up for fire (DP and P) and water as much as possible.
Stone barrier is great for instances, but up to 70 you're not really going into real one. And unlesss you pvp/you're on PvP server, most of the time you're going to be with water shield up for mana regen.
Besides, not using SB in instances/while grinding will teach you how to kite. A very very important skill for a wiz. First learn to do it with mobs, then later adapt what you already do without thinking about to PvP.

Ruxal - Harshlands

Being a wizard on a PvP server and taking non stop abuse from assassins (they never really took on my bm which leads me to believe most assassins are not very brave) I had no choice but to level and always have stone barrier on.

As far as grinding effectively, Gush, Pyrogram is your staple spam setup. As mentioned you can incorporate one of the slower casting but harder hitting spells like Glacial Snare to open with but it has such along cooldown that it is better to use Divine Pyrogram or Sandstorm. For me personally I just Gush, Pyro may way through unless it was water or metal mobs.

On an aside I find that many of the wizard skills need a serious relook. Those other 2 shells are hardly useful at all. Frostblade is almost a complete waste except I use it to build up chi. Force of Will has a animation flaw that waste some of the sealing time. Hailstorm is borderline useless if not useless period, seriously a 33% chance at lvl 10 and 3 seconds to chan/cast? really? Then Pitfall and Crown of Flame are also almost useless except versus bosses when you don't want to take agro. Of course by lvl 90 that will NOT ever be an issue with anything @ 3.33 aps and higher in your party or a psy. Emberstorm is either a insider developer joke or a skill thats so pro I will never be able to master. Of course I'm charmed so mabey it was developed with hp charms in mind!

Ouite seriously having played all the other classes to a decent level now except barb I must say that PWI developers must really really really not like wizards because they have done a swell job of making a bunch of semi useful but mostly useless skills.

That whole QQ aside, in PvP we still are very fearsome so don't lose heart and enjoy the class that takes real class to play and keep playing.

Galox - Heavens Tear

The Problem with Glacial Snare at lower levels is the Range. You'll do better by just Opening with Gush by the time you get to learn GS. I left it at level 1 until level 73, when I levelled it right up to level 7. The cooldown is a pain, but you can just open on your next mob with Gush anyway.

Another thing is that I ALWAYS open with Either Gush or Glacial Snare, or if I'm feeling...experimental, Ice Dragon/Mountains Seize. (Although, tbh imo, the ultimates are horrible PvE skills. So I always spend my sparks on Spark Eruption+ or Sutra.

And erm...Glacial Snare does amazing damage, more than Sandstorm does at it's max level. For me, Divine Pyrogram is only useful in a Sutra combination. Sandstorm outclasses D.Pyro by a lot, but thats 20 levels ahead of D.Pyro. I always got on fine using Stone Rain as my nuke until Sandstorm; but I guess you can level D.Pyro as you want. I've found that I hate the skill, but I know others who love it.

For DPS, I've always believed Alternating Gush and Pyrogram provide the best DPS, but I might test that soon. A lot of important monsters are Water element at my level (Pole, Nob, some TT bosses) and alternating Sandstorm and Stone Rain could provide higher DPS for those (But I'll need to test this)

My general attack pattern goes like this (While im grinding on the Cheif Assassins on Nightscream Island, Level 80 Fire element)

Glacial Snare -> Sandstorm -> Gush -> Pyrogram -> Will of the Phoenix.
(If it's not dead by then, I blame it on my Light Armoured builds lower damage output. If it has any HP remaining, I can throw in a Pitfall to finish it off.)

I miss Undine Strike out because the time it takes to cast Undine, you could have another Gush out. Perhaps I should use Undine more; I mainly use it on Bosses only, but sometimes I use it after Glacial Snare, miss out Sandstorm, and go to Gush.

And Toliman, whats all this "Nonlinear Progression"? I have no idea what you mean by it, and it must be too confusing to help in this particular matter. I'd be curious to know what you mean, but it sounds quite dull.

Toliman - Raging Tide

Galox - Heavens Tear wrote: »

...
And Toliman, whats all this "Nonlinear Progression"? I have no idea what you mean by it, and it must be too confusing to help in this particular matter. I'd be curious to know what you mean, but it sounds quite dull.

I mean something like Geometric progression, but may be better to say numbers describing curve similar to right part of parabola, starting from the vertex.

If we will use defense values for Y axis (ordinate) and percent of damage reduction for X axis, then those graph (curve) will be showing how a defense varies with percent of damage reduction.

If you don't understand it yet, then ...

Mumintroll - Heavens Tear

Toliman - Raging Tide wrote: »

I mean something like Geometric progression, but may be better to say numbers describing curve similar to right part of parabola, starting from the vertex.

If we will use defense values for Y axis (ordinate) and percent of damage reduction for X axis, then those graph (curve) will be showing how a defense varies with percent of damage reduction.

If you don't understand it yet, then ...

I waiting for this Graph from beginning. Problem is that is not linear, or parabolic. I think it will close to hyperbolic curve, BUT you cannot have more than 90% reduction regardless of p.def, or m.def.
It could looks like this. Sorry I have no better tools to made graph and also you need to have lot of data to make right curve.
http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/8830/reduction.jpg

MsSparkles - Heavens Tear

Stone Barrier is good because as a wizard at any level, 1 hit can make the difference in life or death. Get it asap and keep it leveled. If any of these wizards had mass experience in the game pre-superextremeimmanoobpowerleveling they would know this. Also KITING will keep you alive, there are plenty of threads to show how to do this.

As far as Glacial Embrace, honey your a wizzy, you're safest in the water if grinding, plus water mobs give more xp/sp per kill, also later tanking mantavip may be your responsibility.

As for fire, Ive noticed a LOT of flying mobs use either fire, water, or earth in their range attacks, so the fire one is nice for your air mobs that also give more xp/sp per kill than land mobs. In other words level all your shields.

Also a note from a wizard that is ALSO a cleric, I HATE when wizzys don't use Stone Barrier. You being cheap on mana is not cause for me to have a stroke trying to heal you.

K thx bai!

Oh and flame on, I know someone will~

Mumintroll - Heavens Tear

So made graph with some values of my wizard in excel.
http://img819.imageshack.us/i/reduction3.jpg/

Toliman - Raging Tide

Mumintroll - Heavens Tear wrote: »

So made graph with some values of my wizard in excel.
http://img819.imageshack.us/i/reduction3.jpg/

Thank you for your post. It show, how a defense varies with percent of damage reduction.

Common formula is next:
100 * def / (def + 40*lvl) = reduction(%).